Energy drinks: a potential risk of hepatitis among Americans.
A senior construction worker developed a severe form of hepatitis after consuming many energy drinks. The 50-year-old man worked many days so in order to cope with stress and with the lack of sleep, he started drinking a few energy drinks every day.
The man experienced vomiting, nausea, abdominal pain, and lack of appetite, so he thought that he had the flu. After seeing that his urine became dark and his skin and eyes yellowed, he realized that those were the obvious symptoms of hepatitis.
According to specialists from University of Florida College of Medicine, the man was healthy when he started consuming the energy drinks. Also, he was tobacco and alcohol abstinent, and he didn’t take any dangerous drugs.
Researchers further stated that the man’s diet was normal and he wasn’t taking any prescribed medication. Even if he got a tattoo thirty years before the infection, the man didn’t engage in any risky sexual behavior.
Also, scientists underline that the man has never had blood transfusions. In other words, he had almost no risk of developing hepatitis, not even a case of the liver disease in his family history. The tests revealed that the senior patient had HCV or chronic hepatitis C infection.
However, the violent form of hepatitis was not caused by the virus, experts suggested. More precisely, doctors found HCV antibodies in the man’s blood although he experienced the symptoms after only two weeks.
HCV antibodies are usually found in patient’s blood after around ten weeks after the exposure, meaning that the man suffered from chronic HCV, not acute HCV. This viral infection attacks the liver, and in around eighty percent of cases, the acute HVC becomes chronic.
According to CDC experts, the virus quickly spreads through body fluids and blood. If a woman is pregnant, she can transmit the virus to her fetus as well. Other risks of infection included using a contaminated needle, unprotected sex, or the contact with a patient’s blood.
HCV cannot be transmitted through food, but people can get infected if they drink too many energy drinks. According to Donnica Smalls, CDC spokeswoman, ‘Energy drink are not a source of viral hepatitis.’ However, a high energy drink consumption increases the risk of HCV.
After going through a thorough medical analysis, doctors came to the conclusion that the 50-year-old man suffered such a massive liver damage because he had consumed too many energy drinks.
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