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Energy drinks a help or hype? Zoonosis?
Energy Drinks: Help or Hype?
With exotic-sounding ingredients like schizandra, ginkgo biloba and guarana, energy drinks sound perfectly healthful — but are they? The problem comes with their two common additives: caffeine and sugar. While some of the energy drinks on the market have as little as 80 milligrams of caffeine — about the amount in a cup of coffee — other drinks can zap your body with 300 milligrams of caffeine or more. For those not accustomed to consuming high amounts of caffeine, this can trigger symptoms ranging from mild to severe.
Energy drinks also contain large amounts of sugar, a concern for many health experts and parents because of the growing rate of obesity. And as for those exotic-sounding ingredients used to market energy drinks, “In most cases, there’s little research on the ingredient, and the amount in the drink probably won’t make any difference,” says Andrea Giancoli, a registered dietitian and spokesperson for the American Dietetic Association.
What the Heck Is Zoonosis?
Zoonosis is the medical term for infections that you can catch from animals, like your dog or cat.
Making sure your pet sees a vet once a year and stays up to date on vaccinations, especially rabies and leptospirosis, can minimize your risks. So can your good hygiene — washing up after dumping out pets’ waste, playing with them or being scratched. Also, be sure to regularly apply or give medicines that safeguard against ticks, which can spread Lyme disease and Rocky Mountain spotted fever, and mosquitoes, which can transmit hookworms and other parasites. Take similar steps to protect against fleas—they can cause rashes and, in rare cases, transmit the plague bacterium.
FYI: Pregnant women and those with weak immune systems should get someone else to empty kitty litter. Cat feces sometimes contain a parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, that can cause birth defects when spread from mother to fetus and can also damage the lungs and brain of immune-weakened people.
Sources: Utah State University Cooperative Extension, Consumer Reports on Health
