You probably know someone who runs on a daily energy drink.
Maybe it's the can at the morning meeting, the one before the gym, or the late-night save before a deadline.
For most people, it feels as everyday as coffee.
A new analysis of more than 28,000 safety complaints filed with the US Food and Drug Administration points to a worrying pattern.
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Products containing caffeine or other stimulants turn up in reports of cardiac arrest about 11 times more often than ordinary foods.
The analysis comes from researchers at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.
They are presenting the work at the American Heart Association Scientific Sessions in Chicago.
The work is preliminary. It was released as a research abstract and has not yet gone through full peer review.
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What the FDA reports actually show
The researchers analyzed 28,345 adverse event reports from 2017 to 2025.
Of those, 854 involved products containing caffeine or other stimulants.
The rest involved items like soft drinks, meal-replacement shakes, protein bars, smoothies and vitamins.
These reports come from the FDA's adverse event database for foods and supplements, known as CAERS.
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The entries are voluntary self-reports from consumers and health professionals.
They show that someone noticed a problem and linked it to a product. They do not prove the product caused it.
Beyond cardiac arrest, caffeine and stimulant products turned up about 4.5 times more often in heart attack reports.
Reports of chest pain and a racing heart were also more common.
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Ventricular arrhythmias, which are dangerous disturbances of the heart's rhythm, appeared about four times more often in the stimulant group.
Why the age split is the striking part
Nearly half of all cardiovascular event reports, 45 percent, involved people between 18 and 34.
That overlaps with the group most likely to down one or more of these drinks on a daily basis.
A single large can of a popular energy drink can carry 200 to 300 milligrams of caffeine.
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Some pre-workout powders are stronger still. Daily users often stack them with other caffeinated products they do not count.
What to watch for if you drink them every day
If you lean on energy drinks or stimulant pre-workout powders every day, cardiologists suggest paying attention to a racing or skipping heartbeat, chest tightness, or lightheadedness.
Those symptoms are worth raising with a doctor, especially around hard exercise or late nights.
The age pattern in the FDA data may also reflect behaviors that stack risk on risk.
Mixing high doses of caffeine with alcohol, other stimulants, intense workouts or very little sleep can push a young heart with an undiagnosed rhythm problem over the line.
The FDA does not require energy drinks or stimulant supplements to clear the premarket safety testing it demands of medications.
They are regulated as foods or dietary supplements.
That leaves voluntary adverse event reports as one of the main safety signals the agency has.
The University of Virginia team is scheduled to present the full abstract at the AHA Scientific Sessions this week in Chicago, with peer-reviewed publication still to come.
This article is made and published by Ida-Marie Palm Varbæk, who may have used AI in the preparation.