Abstract
Health disorders associated with energy drinks have been reported. Previous studies included the effects of energy drinks on several organs such as liver, kidney, and brain. However, histopathological studies on stomach and duodenum are relatively scarce. This study was performed to investigate the histopathological effects of prolonged excessive consumption of Red Bull, one of the most consumed energy drinks, on the mucosae of stomach and duodenum of adult Wistar rats. Material and Methods: Thirty male Wistar rats, with average body weight of 150-200 g, were randomly allocated into two groups; an experimental group that received Red Bull with a daily oral dose of 1.071 ml/100 g of body weight for three months and a control group that received an equivalent dose of distilled water for the same duration. At the end of the experiment, all the animals were euthanized. Stomach and duodenum were dissected and processed for histopathological and immunohistochemical studies. The gastric and duodenal mucosae of Red Bull group showed marked mucosal atrophy, loss of intestinal villi and crypts, mononuclear inflammatory cellular infiltration, and increased apoptosis. The present study demonstrated the adverse histopathological changes in the mucosae of stomach and duodenum produced by prolonged excessive consumption of Red Bull in rats. (c) 2017 The Authors. Published by IASE. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).