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A three-year-old mother received a pacemaker in her heart after drinking six cans of energy drink each day.
After consuming this amount of sweetened beverage each day, Samantha Sharpe began to lose consciousness at age 32.
The doctors also told her that she was about to contract type 2 diabetes and that she was developing kidney stones because of the colossal amount of sugar ingested daily.
Now 33, she tries to warn others against the same path.
Samantha told Leicestershire Live: "I have three children and I work, so it's everyday life that has driven me to drink energy drinks.
"I work in the evening so it made me spend the day.
"It woke me up and made me a little hyper.
"I also had eight months off, which did not help the number of people I drank.
"In 2014, I drank five or six a day until the pacemaker was adjusted in February 2018."
Samantha, who lives in Leicester, worked as a housekeeper when she first developed her addiction to energy drinks.
She continued, "I got to the point where I was drinking five energy drinks a day.
"Drinks accelerated my heartbeat, which would cause palpitations, after which I would break down when I needed it, which would drop my heart rate to 20 beats per minute.
"It would give me headaches, I would be cranky and I would need another to keep me.
"I did not want to sleep and I felt overwhelming sadness when I was trying to sleep, something I have never known before, which made me want another one.
"And I would be shaken, I felt like an addict, my family warned me but I did not listen, I went to the doctor more than a year ago because I continued to lose consciousness at home.
"I had a first degree heart block and it was then extended to the second degree.
"Last February, at Glenfield Hospital, I had a heart pacemaker built right into my heart to make my heart work better.
"The pacemaker had to go through a vein in the leg, it was not a pleasant experience and my children had to see me coming in and out of the hospital."
While energy drinks are certainly a contributing factor, the doctors who treated Samantha do not know exactly what was causing her problems.
As a result of the pacemaker insertion operation, Samantha says that she had a "new life".
She said, "I'm not darkening anymore and I can not feel my heart getting bogged down anymore." My heart used to skip beats.
"But I have to go back to the doctor every six months and I need to have the pacemaker replaced every 10 years.
"I know I should not drink it anymore, but I've been drinking an energy drink since then and I could feel my heart racing, my kidneys aching and a headache being felt.
"I thought, I can not do that anymore."
She added, "People do not realize how much it affects you.
"I went to see people who bought the drinks and told them what had happened to me.
"It breaks my heart to see kids do it.There is an age limit, but I still see moms buying them for their kids.
"The effects of energy drinks need to be further advertised.
"I think everyone knows that they are not good for you – but no one has ever said why they are not."
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