Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2015 November 11

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November 11

Lucozade

Lucozade is marketed as an energy drink. Does it actually give you energy? KägeTorä - (^影_虎) (もしもし！) 17:02, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

The "Composition" section of that article says it includes sugar and caffeine, so it seems likely the answer would be "Yes". ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 18:10, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Caffeine does not give you energy. Fgf10 (talk) 18:40, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

If you are going to make nitpicking contrary statements like that, Fgf10, you should at least explain that while caffeine is a stimulant (physiology) it has no significant food calories itself. μηδείς (talk) 19:07, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

My statement was more than clear enough and not nitpicking, BB was making a factually incorrect statement. Fgf10 (talk) 19:39, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Who said anything about "food calories"? Caffeine is a stimulant, as you said. It helps you stay awake. Hence, it provides energy. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 02:03, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

I wouldn't say it provides energy, but it does encourage you to use your existing energy. StuRat (talk) 03:39, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Same end-result. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 04:04, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Just so we are sure to be factually accurate: energy has a very specific meaning, and caffeine provides no energy. What Caffeine does is alter your brain chemistry to it doesn't fall into "sleep mode" as readily. The mechanism is pretty simple: it blocks the action of the neurotransmitter Adenosine at Adenosine receptor sites in the brain; normally high levels of free adenosine (also an ingredient in adenosine triphosphate (ATP), an important metabolic chemical) indicate that the body is low on glucose (technically, high levels of free adenosine indicate the body is low on ATP, which is the intermediary between blood glucose and all sorts of metabolic processes). When the elevated levels of free adenosine reach certain receptors in the brain, that signals the brain to slow down certain neurological processes, meaning you get drowsy. Caffeine works by blocking this adenosine from reaching those receptors, so your body doesn't know it's low on ATP. As noted at Sleep#Physiology, one of the main purposes of sleep is to allow your brain to replenish its supply of ATP. Caffeine tricks your brain into thinking it isn't low on ATP. Basically, it does not give you more energy, it simply makes your brain not know you're almost out of energy. It's why caffeine doesn't actually improve mental function beyond keeping you awake: your brain is low on ATP, so it doesn't function at peak levels, but it doesn't realize its low on ATP, so it stays awake. --Jayron32 13:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

The human body can turn sugars, starch, fats and proteins into energy - so almost anything that you eat - and many, many things that you drink provide energy. By the definition of "a drink that provides energy", Coca Cola is an "energy drink" - so is a spoonful of sugar stirred into distilled water - so is milk, OJ, tomato juice - so is a cup of melted candle wax - and so is blood sucked from the throat of a virgin beneath a full moon! The calorie count of a food or drink is a direct measure of the amount of energy it provides. So only "zero-calorie" drinks such as pure water or diet sodas are truly not energy drinks...which makes the term a bit redundant! The addition of caffeine may make you feel more energetic because it's a stimulant - and in that sense, it might help you to use the energy provided by the drink - but by itself, it doesn't provide energy. SteveBaker (talk) 19:05, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

We can turn ethanol into energy too, so who needs food ? :-) StuRat (talk) 16:37, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

So, Energy drinks are so-called due to polysemy, i.e. the fact that we can use the same word to mean different things in different contexts. Most educated people will realize we are not talking about the physical concept of energy when we talk about e.g. Red Bull. People don't drink Red Bull as an important source of calories, they drink it to feel "buzzed" or "energized". As the article explains in the first sentence, energy drinks contain stimulant drugs. Stimulants often cause people to report higher subjective "energy" levels. An article for this concept is alertness, though there may be better ones. So like other popular brands, this drink would WP:OR seem to give you both energy in the metabolic sense (blood glucose), and also "energy" in terms of alertness. SemanticMantis (talk) 19:55, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Lucozade isn't primarily an energy drink, it's a sport drink, equivalent of Gatorade in the colonies. So we are talking about the physical concenpt of energy. This is why it's loaded with sugar. The stimulant effects of caffeine are secondary here. I don't see why this is so hard to understand. Fgf10 (talk) 20:30, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

You're the one who doesn't understand. "Energy drinks", thus marketed, are never talking about the "physical concept of energy". They're always talking about the subjective sense. Now, the subjective sense includes physical energy immediately available for exertion, but it does not ever mean "calories". Not even once.

So caffeine is very relevant. --Trovatore (talk) 20:34, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

Please read what I said. You are entirely correct when you are talking about energy drinks. Lucozade isn't an energy drink, it's sports drink. So readily available calories and redydration are the most important things. The OP misstated, clearly confusing others. Fgf10 (talk) 22:36, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

How about some references then? Lucozade has about 12 mg caffeine per 100 ml [1]. Coffee#Caffeine_content varies quite a bit, but let's say roughly 80 mg per 7 oz. Black tea has about 20 mg/6 oz. So it is true that Lucazade Energy has less caffeine per volume than other energy drinks, and is more on par with tea. As many people will attest, tea can indeed be used as a stimulant, even though we don't normally call it an energy drink. OP and others may be well-served by knowing that Lucozade has about the same amount of caffeine per volume as tea, and that this is about 1/3 of what is found in coffee or Red Bull [2]. Caffeine sensitivity varies widely, and I will not tell anyone that they cannot get a caffeine buzz from Lucazade ;) SemanticMantis (talk) 20:51, 11 November 2015 (UTC)

It's probably worth mentioning that Lucozade was originally intended to help sick people recover - it was initially dispensed only in hospitals, then sold more widely as some kind of recovery-aid for whatever ails you. When I was a kid in the UK in the late 1950's and early 1960's, my Mom would always give us Lucozade to drink when we had colds and flu. SteveBaker (talk) 03:17, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Ditto in the 1960s. As a result, the taste of the stuff always makes me feel slightly queasy as I can't help associating it with illness. Alansplodge (talk) 10:22, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Gatorade (and the good old Lucozade) supplies subtances from which energy can be obtained, as does many other foodstuffs as cited by Steve Baker above. But the intake of such foodstuffs does not cause the processing of of these foodstuffs into energy. If that were the case there would be no obesity. 'Energy' in human activity is derived more from stimulants (caffeine) or psychological sources than the intake of foodstuffs. And here we have to consider the placebo effect of Lucozade or Gatorade or the multiplicity of so-called energy drinks. It's all about the marketing. Richard Avery (talk) 07:36, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

That's not really true. Other then in nuclear reactions, energy is neither created nor destroyed - merely shifted from one form to another. In the case of energy drinks, the energy is stored in chemical bonds in the sugars that they contain. This happens to be a convenient energy storage system for the human body since it's extremely easy for our bodies to release that bond energy and use it for things like moving limbs or running the brain. So if you drink Lucozade, then run a mile - the sugars initially wind up in the blood stream - then the energy locked away in them is transformed through several stages into kinetic energy as you run - ultimately turning into heat energy at the end. Of course if you drink Lucozade, then fall asleep on the sofa, then much of that excess sugar in the blood will probably get transformed into fat and saved away someplace. The role of the caffeine is to stimulate the body such that you're more likely to run that mile than to fall asleep. Hence the caffeine only alters how and when the energy contained in those chemical bonds is converted to another form. But the energy is definitely present in the drink at the outset - and the presence or absence of the caffeine is only altering the likelyhood of the energy being converted into motion (or information processing) before it gets a chance to be stored away into fat cells for future use. SteveBaker (talk) 15:42, 12 November 2015 (UTC)

Including in nuclear reactions, energy is neither created nor destroyed. -- BenRG (talk) 02:41, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

In a nuclear reaction, mass can be converted into energy. StuRat (talk) 20:37, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

It's energy, even when you call it "mass".

If you let a compressed spring relax, that also "converts mass to energy", in essentially the same way a nuclear reaction does. At the same temperature, the compressed spring has a (very very slightly) higher mass than does the relaxed spring.

Similarly, when an atom of uranium fissions and the pieces move apart very fast, if you sum up the rest masses of the pieces, you get a lower value than the rest mass of the original atom. But the difference is nothing more than the potential energy corresponding to the forces that want to move the pieces apart, really no different from the spring. --Trovatore (talk) 22:17, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

The marketing aspect is the key here - a can of Coca Cola is also full of sugar and caffeine - but it's frequently derided as a nasty sugary tooth-rotting, calorie-laden, obesity-causing, semi-addictive caffeine drink - whereas Lucozade - with pretty much the same key ingredients - is seen as providing you with the energy you need to get up and get things done!! It's all a matter of perception - and that's something that marketing is designed to adjust. SteveBaker (talk) 15:48, 12 November 2015 (UTC)