Energy Drinks Typically have as much Sugar and Three Times as much Caffeine as Soda

05/09/06 Faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound. It's a bird. It's a plane. It's an office worker on an energy drink?

Everyone from groggy pencil pushers and sleep-deprived students to Hollywood glitterati and macho athletes are turning to these zingy beverages with powerful names such as Full Throttle, Red Bull, Rockstar and Monster Energy.

They're so popular that 2.5 billion cans of Red Bull alone were sold worldwide last year.

But before latching onto the trend, there are a few things to keep in mind.

What goes in?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not defined what ''energy'' or ''energizer'' means, so there are no set ingredients or characteristics required for a beverage company to use those terms.

The drinks are usually sugary, caffeine-spiked concoctions in boldly decorated containers.

One of the things that makes these drinks stand out from sports drinks, which are generally designed for rehydration and the replenishment of electrolytes lost during sweating, is a fancy ingredient list, often filled with herbs, stimulants, amino acids and vitamins.

Typical ones include taurine, ginseng, l-carnitine, ginkgo and guarana.

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