A man in Yamaguchi Prefecture died in mid-December after taking a Chinese herbal medicine he bought in Shanghai, prefectural government officials said Tuesday.

The man, who was in his 50s and had been using a drug for diabetes for seven years, began to take both the Chinese herbal medicine and a hospital-prescribed cold drug in early September and was hospitalized because of liver and kidney dysfunction, and pneumonia later that month, they said.

His condition continued to deteriorate in October and November, the officials said, based on a report from a hospital in Hofu.

Prefectural experts have analyzed the Chinese medicine but have not detected an ingredient found in Chinese diet food products that caused a series of health problems in Japan in 2002, the officials said.