Chart: Source of beverages containing taurine/network (the same below)
Recently, the incident of a boy throwing a foreign object into a female classmate’s coffee cup at a university in Shanghai has aroused everyone’s attention. The public security organs have taken the boy away for investigation, and the university has issued a statement to cancel his student status. The boy admitted that he bought a certain brand of taurine effervescent tablets online. Such products sold online contain keywords such as “stimulate women’s sexual desire” and “not easy to detect”. The reporter searched today and found that after entering “taurine effervescent tablets” on Taobao, most of the search results in the front row were vitamin C effervescent tablets, as well as taurine effervescent tablets marked “for men”. A certain brand of taurine effervescent tablets has not been searched.
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What is a regular taurine effervescent tablet? Du Jiang, director of the Substance Addiction Medicine Department of the Shanghai Mental Health Center, said that taurine, scientifically known as 2-aminoethanesulfonic acid, is a sulfur-containing amino acid with a simple structure in animals. As a non-essential amino acid for the human body, it can be mainly obtained through dietary supplementation. When combined with bile acids, taurine has the functions of regulating blood pressure, anti-oxidation, anti-inflammatory and anti-obesity, so it is widely used in many functional foods and beverages.
Take the common “Red Bull” drink as an example, taurine as the main component, together with other functional factors, “act synergistically in human metabolism, refreshing and replenishing The anti-fatigue effect of physical strength”. Studies have shown that taurine has various effects in the central nervous system, such as neuroprotection, neuromodulation and inhibitory neurotransmission. It interacts with GABAergic, glycinergic, and glutamatergic receptors and helps reduce anxiety-like behaviors.
Illustration: a functional drink ingredient
Many people take some functional drinks after exercise to replenish their energy, but doctors warn that functional drinks with taurine, caffeine and vitamin B complex as the main ingredients also have potential risks . Functional beverages are beverages that adjust human body functions to a certain extent by adjusting the nutrients and content in the beverages, and are used to supplement trace elements to maintain the balance of the body. It is not recommended for individuals to consume a large amount of functional beverages every day, let alone drink it as water, otherwise it will cause harm to the body, such as vitamin poisoning, increase the burden on the body, etc. Long-term drinking may also lead to insomnia. In addition, from the perspective of mental health, although functional beverages are not regulated, they can still be a gateway to other addictive substances and need to be paid attention to to prevent the development of substance dependence.
Dr. Tang Yuzhen from the Department of Addiction Medicine said that many new drugs and drugs are now extremely camouflaged. It claims to be able to relieve anxiety, eliminate fatigue, improve sleep, etc., and the “gamma-hydroxybutyric acid” contained in it is a state-controlled psychoactive drug, which has deep sedative and hypnotic effects and may be used in some illegal acts. Drinks under the banner of “taurine effervescent tablets” on the Internet may not have such simple ingredients.
Dr. Tang said that you should be very vigilant about any food and beverages that come into your mouth, drink functional beverages as needed, and keep in mind that functional beverages can only be consumed under specific circumstances. ; Do not drink beverages with unknown ingredients, make sure you know what you are drinking. If you encounter unclear ingredients, it is best to do a search to identify them or simply not drink them; try to keep the beverages away from you when you go out.
Intern Ji Danjie Xinmin Evening News reporter Zuo Yan