Eighteen of the nearly 7,000 products with the “functional food” label in Japan had received over 110 reports from medical professionals as having caused some level of health damage among their users, the Consumer Affairs Agency said Friday, as the industry reels from deaths linked to Kobayashi Pharmaceutical’s beni kōji supplements.
According to the results of a questionnaire sent out by the agency to manufacturers of such foods, 11 companies that marketed the 18 products replied that in most cases, users suffered only mild symptoms such as diarrhea and rashes.
There was more than one case in which users were hospitalized, the agency said. But the causal relationship between the product they took and their symptoms has yet to be determined. No deaths have been reported so far.
Given that none of the products had a large number of reported issues, the agency said it did not plan to take immediate attention against them. For the 18 products that have come up in the survey, the agency plans to conduct a detailed analysis by medical experts and make the results public.
Although the agency did not make public what types of products had been linked to health issues, it said not all were dietary supplements.
The survey of the 6,975 products with the functional food label was initiated by the government last month following the scandal over Kobayashi Pharmaceuticals’ beni kōji supplements, which is now linked to five deaths and over 200 hospitalizations.
The agency sent out a questionnaire to the 1,693 companies that sell functional food products, asking doctors, nurses and pharmacists around the country if there had been reports about health effects potentially caused by the product.
The numbers presented Friday were a quick tally collected from around 80% companies that responded as of Thursday. The number may go up as the rest submit the report, the agency said.
With your current subscription plan you can comment on stories. However, before writing your first comment, please create a display name in the Profile section of your subscriber account page.