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Low-priced energy drinks are increasingly being used instead of aphrodisiac roots for love cures and to revive mostly polygamous marriages in central Mozambique.
A United Nations nutritionist has told Lusa that this trend threatens to become a public health problem.
Domestic and imported energy drinks in plastic bottles and cans sell for from 15 to 50 meticais (21 to 70 euro cents) and compete for sales with soft drinks, alcoholic beverages, wafers and chips at roadsides and road transport terminals.
The scenery is repeated along the National Road 7 entrance, the road most used by truckers in the province of Manica.
“Frozy and Dragon sell more than refreshments and mineral water. I sell more than 40 or 50 cans per day to passengers and truck drivers,” hawker Fernando Pedro told Lusa while delivering more drinks through the window of a “plate” (collective transport) in the Chimoio bus terminal.
Another trader, Eliezer Vandro, is surprised by the profit from the sale of energy drinks in recent months and says demand is due to “the discovery of the effect” of stimulants.
While some seek escape from fatigue and improved performance on the job, especially during long-distance night driving, others want other help.
“I took it for the pleasant taste, but then I realised that when I had it, it satisfied my women, so I started consuming it to stimulate relationships and to secure my home,” said 27-year old polygamist Frigolino Temusse with a laugh.
He packs cans of freshly-bought drinks into a backpack at the bus station prior to returning home to Bunga, Guro district, a poor area that lacks almost all basic services but is famous for premature and polygamous marriages.
“When I started taking it, I saw that my performance improved there. I spend a bit of money, but it’s worth it,” Gabriel Naucho told Lusa, with embarrassed smiles.
Almost everyone admits that stimulants make them more alert, some of them adding that they are addicted and need more and more to achieve the same effect.
“When you arrive home tired, you are suspected of infidelity, even if that is not the case. I am a bricklayer, so I have spent a lot of strength on building, and I am looking for help to secure myself at home,” said Patricio Barunde.
He drinks two cans a day on average, and confesses that he does not know the risks of excess.
Truck driver Frank Bernath told Lusa that he uses energy drinks to prevent fatigue and to ensure he sticks to schedule when driving for Beira to African countries inland.
“The more trips I make, the more money I get, so I have energy drinks as my allies to fight fatigue and sleep,” said another truck driver on his way from Beira to Malawi.
David Berlito, a nutritionist with the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO), told Lusa that this consumption “fever” could become a public health problem.
He fears an increase in cases of hypertension in the coming years because of excessive consumption of caffeine in energy drinks.
“Caffeine is hypertensive, so when people consume it, they become active,” and are more prone to insomnia and an erection, he says. But the risk is high. Excessive consumption of caffeine causes loss of calcium, intoxication, nausea, tachycardia, tremors, irritability and even death.
Berlito believes there is an urgent need for an awareness campaigns on the issue. “This is a trend stimulated by low prices,” he says, but it “could lead to a public health problem”.
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