Dear readers, please allow us to impart an importance piece of advice the JOE team has learnt from years of drinking.
If you’re on a night out, and someone offers you a jagerbomb, *don’t* drink the energy drink.
Just have the jager neat. Yes, it may look slightly odd grabbing a shot glass out of your drink, but when the morning after comes you *only* have to deal with a hangover, where all of your drinking friends have to deal with a hangover *and* a sugar crash.
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For you see, alcohol is a depressant, while an energy drink is a stimulant. Being drunk and really awake may seem like a good idea in practice, but in theory… you just end up being a bit of a mess.
How much damage could mixing energy drinks with alcohol do? Well according to Professor Richard van Rijn, possibly the same amount as cocaine.
Professor van Rijn has recently been testing the effects of high levels of caffeine mixed with alcohol on adolescent mice, and has claimed that over time their brains and behaviour frequently resembles that of cocaine users.
Writing about his findings for Purdue University, van Rijn states, “It seems the two substances together push them over a limit that causes changes in their behaviour and changes the neurochemistry in their brains.
“We are clearly seeing effects of the combined drinks that we would not see if drinking one or the other.”
Interestingly, van Rijn also suggests that the similarity in neurochemical signs see people who like an energy drink mixer with their alcohol end up taking cocaine in later life. As he explains it, the change in brain activity could see a user trade one vice for another in an effort to register a similar high.
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“That is one reason why it is so difficult for drug users to quit because of these lasting changes in the brain.”
“Mice that were exposed to highly caffeinated alcoholic drinks later found cocaine was not as pleasurable. They may then use more cocaine to get the same effect.”
Professor van Rijn will most likely continue to explore his research, but in the meantime: drink your jager neat.
Headline image via Dani Lurie/Flickr.
This article originally appeared on JOE.co.uk.
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