Behold the power of the asterisk.<\/p>\n
There’s a product out there whose benefits can hardly be believed: Citicoline improves brain function.* Phenyalanine enhances alertness.* Taurine helps maintain the integrity of cell membranes.* Glucuronolactone has been shown to reduce sleepiness.* Caffeine provides a boost of energy and feeling of heightened alertness.*<\/p>\n
Wow, those are some pretty hefty claims, hardly believable even. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that, when these claims are made on the website of 5-Hour Energy, all five of them are disclaimed, *This statement has not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. <\/em> That’s right, five disclaimed claims on a single page!<\/p>\n But hang on, isn’t there a TV spot that says doctors recommend 5-Hour Energy? Well, yeah, sort of, and here’s the script: “Over 73% (of doctors) who reviewed 5-hour Energy said they would recommend a low-calorie energy supplement to their healthy patients who use energy supplements. 5-hour Energy has only 4 calories, and is used over 9 million times a week.” Ladies and gentlemen, that may be the best non-endorsement endorsement ever created. (Ignore the fact that it’s overlaid with a 1-line legal disclaimer, a 6-line legal disclaimer, a 3-line legal disclaimer, and a 2-line legal disclaimer.)<\/p>\n So what we have is a product that purports to be GOOD for you based entirely on the rationale that no one has been able to determine that it is BAD for you.<\/p>\n At least, not until now. This week the Food and Drug Administration and New York’s Attorney General announced that they are investigating claims that 5-Hour Energy may have contributed to 13 deaths and 33 hospitalizations. And, in his defense, all the 5-hour Energy owner has to say is, “It’s overblown. When it’s in small quantities … It’s like this — water is good, but if you have too much you drown.”<\/p>\n Yep, it’s just like water. Water, with a really big asterisk. So, in that spirit, we have a suggestion for a new tagline for this product:<\/p>\n If you drink 5-Hour Energy, you’re crazy*<\/p>\n *This statement has been evaluated by sane individuals, and it’s true. If you drink this stuff, you really are crazy.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Behold the power of the asterisk. There’s a product out there whose benefits can hardly be believed: Citicoline improves brain function.* Phenyalanine enhances alertness.* Taurine helps maintain the integrity of cell membranes.* Glucuronolactone has been shown to reduce sleepiness.* Caffeine provides a boost of energy and feeling of heightened alertness.*…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[19,348],"class_list":["post-641","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-7","tag-5-hour-energy","tag-disclaimer"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quicksilverhg.com\/thequicksliver\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}