A 50-year-old construction worker in Florida recently showed up at the hospital with stomach pain, nausea, and a bunch of other symptoms. So he thought he had the flu. But they ran a bunch of tests that showed liver damage . . . and it turned out he’d developed acute HEPATITIS from chugging too many ENERGY DRINKS. It’s not clear if it was Red Bull or some other brand. But he’d been drinking four to five cans a day for three weeks, and essentially overdosed on B-3 vitamins, also called niacin. If you’re wondering, hepatitis isn’t just a virus you get from unprotected sex or sharing needles. In general, it means your liver is inflamed. And you can develop ACUTE hepatitis from things like drinking or doing a lot of drugs. This also isn’t the first time this has happened. A 22-year-old woman in New York was diagnosed with acute hepatitis in 2011 after she drank TEN energy drinks a day for about two weeks. The good news is it’s not permanent. The guy in Florida’s symptoms went away about three days after he stopped drinking them. And the woman in New York recovered too.
