Manoj Bhargava Energy Drink Makes Billions

Blind Monk Swears Off of Vitamin B12

by Winsip Custer CPW News Service

      Controlling over 90% of the energy shot market, 5 Hour Energy drink, has made its creator, a man who lives the life-style of a Buddhist monk for over 12 years before turning entrepreneur, a billionaire.

     Like coffee before it, the drink has a spiritual connection.  A boost in energy from coffee's caffeine gave early Christian monks in Northern Africa the energy they needed to continue steadfast and energetic in their prayers and other other-worldly endeavors.  “It made them better entre-pray-neurs,” said Brother Andrew of the Capuchin Friars of the Franciscan Order.  “Capuchino is a coffee drink directly credited with invention by the friars.  We went through a period in the 1980’s when South American Capuchin monks were leading an effort to copyright the name Coca-Capuchino," said Brother Andrew.  It packed an incredibly high energy potency, but the ingredients were not legal in most countries.  Some tried to get the wonderful brew a medical designation like medical marijuana, but to no avail.  It was particularly helpful for older retired monks who needed help focusing on their prayer vigils showing the link between Manoj Bhargava’s early claims that his drink is a 'focus drink' more than an 'energy drink'.  "Friar Bartholomew at 97 was totally incontinent until he started taking Coca-Capuchino.  Then he was hitting about 50/50, but in baseball that's batting 500!" said Father Andrew who credited the rise to the focusing effects of the Coca-Capuchino.

     Bhargava has lamented the fact that the FDA, which had approved the placement of goat gonads in men’s thighs in Dr. Brinkley’s 1950’s sexual dysfunction remedy and approved Tamiflu as a remedy for the flu virus, does not like his use of the word “focus” in describing what 5 Hour Energy does.  “We explained that Coca-Capuchino was a ‘celestially centering consommé’,” said Father Andrew, “which brought no resistance from the FDA or other agencies until they learned of its active ingredients."

     5 Hour Energy's inventor, Bhargava, was born in India.  His parents moved to the United States when he was a child and his father pursued a career in the plastics industry.  Bhargava returned to India from the United States, where he became a member of the Hanslok Ashram.  This group lived the lifestyle of Buddhist monks and  Bhargava was there for 12 years.

     5 Hour Energy’s primary pulse pumpers are caffeine and vitamins B12 and B6 with over 2000 times the normal daily human dosage of the B vitamins. Bhargava makes no apparent connections between the spiritual demands for high energy and eventual exploitation of the combination of vitamin B12 and B6 with caffeine, the turbo-charged elements in the billion dollar energy drink formula.

Vitamin B12 blinded Tibetan monk
Anil Narayan says energy drink gave him atrophied
optic nerves, but also the energy to pray about his healing.
"Life is like a box of chocolates," said Anil quoting his
favorite spiritual resource Forrest Gump...."and
you don't always know what you're gonna' get."

   Tibetan monk, Anil Narayan, said that for years and years he had leaned heavily on vast quantities of caffeine and vitamins B12 and B6 for its “celestially centering energy” and got something he had not counted on.  It seems that massive doses of these B vitamin bring on unwanted side effects.

     Vitamin B12 is a water-soluble vitamin that's important in the production of red blood cells and nerve cells. Absorbed into the bloodstream during digestion it packs a punch. Foods such as shellfish and meat are good sources of the vitamin, but the primary physical side effects of taking too much B12 include mild diarrhea, skin rashes, hives, breathing problems and heart palpitations. Symptoms are typically mild and disappear within 24 hours after ingestion. Vitamin B12 can have negative psychological side effects, too. These include panic, anxiety attacks and insomnia. The side effects can lead to breathing problems and heart palpitations created by panic and anxiety. The symptoms typically disappear within a few hours, as the excess B12 is flushed from the system, but some monks say that staying up all night with diarrhea, anxiety and panic attacks helps rather than hinders their prayer life.  “I would dose out on B12 and think that the devil was chasing me around the compound riding a winged unicorn,” said Brother Andrew who concluded….”that’ll really make you say your prayers.”

     Anil Narayan was not as lucky.  Like some people who develop rarer disorders from larger dosages like Leber's disease, a hereditary condition that causes the optic nerve to atrophy, Narayan went blind. “Large doses of B12 can lead to an early onset of the disease or cause the optic nerve to atrophy as in my case,” said Narayan.  “But of course that just gives me something else to pray about and lending validity to this ‘celestially centering consommé’s' ability to focus the prayers of the faithful,” Narayan concluded.