A health advocate says awareness of energy drinks needs to be increased, especially around sugar and caffeine content.
It comes as experts warn that these drinks can be 'dangerous' for people with heart issues, especially young people who may not know they have one yet.
The warnings follow a report by the British Medical Journal about a 21-year-old in Britain, who developed heart failure after drinking an 'excessive' amount of energy drinks.
Dr Eva Orsmond told Newstalk Breakfast while the case in the UK is an "extreme" one, there needs to be more awareness about such products.
"These drinks are very high in caffeine, but also they're typically very high in sugar because this is basically where that energy boost comes from.
"They're marketed very much as sport performance increasers, but in reality people are drinking them typically for that afternoon slump or when they feel a little bit tired.
"And that's where my concern immediately comes: why there is such a market for something that is marketing to say 'You need this when when you're feeling tired'".
'200 milligrams per can'
Dr Orsmond said the reasons people feel tired need to tackled, especially young people.
"One of the biggest reasons why people feel tired: obviously overweight and obesity, and any medical conditions that relate to that.
"We know already that 25% of the Irish young population are overweight and obese - not to talk about the adults, which are over 60%.
"These drinks have a very high content of caffeine: they typically vary between 150 to 200 milligrams per can.
"If you think about a normal coffee it's 40 milligrams and a double expresso is 80."
She said the other concern is sugar.
"If you are drinking these drinks instead of water, and let's say you had one 230 calorie bottles a day - on top of your energy requirement for a day - for a year: you would actually put on a stone and a half of excess weight."
Warnings 'in very small print'
And Dr Orsmond believes warnings associated with these drinks need to be increased.
"There are warning labels on them, but [in] very small print.
"I think we really need to increase the awareness of these things, like we need to increase the awareness of anything that we put in our mouth overall.
"I don't think the solution is just to ban them - because we can't ban alcohol, we can't ban smoking - but we don't want a situation of nanny state, neither.
"But it is worrying to see that half of the cool drinks and waters that are in convenience stores are packed in these colourful packagings of these energy drinks".
