You’ve seen them advertised an on store shelves – drinks with names like Neuro, IDrink, and Dreamwater promise that their combinations of hormones, neurotransmitters, and related amino-acids will keep you relaxed, focused, happy, and improve your sex life. We’ve seen these sorts of promises before from unregulated dietary supplements.

The problem is that, since these sort of relaxation or brain drinks aren’t tightly controlled by the FDA like most medicines, little is known about what is actually in them let alone the sources for those ingredients, their safety, or often the dose. While it is true that many of these over the counter drinks purport to offer the sort of benefits or effects usually associated with the substances they are supposed to contain. But what doses are proper and what combinations are safe? Fortunately for the makers of these drinks, those questions don’t have to be answered by dietary supplement makers. Lucky for them.

This sort of drink fad reminds many of us in the scientific community of the issues raised when energy drinks like RedBull, Monster, Rockstar, and others showed up – pushing as much caffeine into users as 4-5 or more cups of strong coffee in one can. Things got worse when those drinks were mixed with alcohol, finally culminating in their mixing right in the can! Lots of caffeine and alcohol?! Sure, here you go! Too bad drinking these in massive quantities sent dozens, if not hundreds, of young people across the United States to hospitals for cardiac problems, blackouts caused by excessive drinking masked by the caffeine, and near death from alcohol poisoning.

The question is – what may we find out about these new relaxation and brain drinks containing unspecified amounts of GABA, melatonin, 5-HTP, and other chemicals that are important for brain function. Will they help, hurt, or cause irreparable damage? Since we don’t have years of data and multiple studies assessing their use, that’s a question that’s going to take a while to answer – until then, sip carefully and be sure to take marketing slogans with a grain of salt.