The prevalence of dietary supplement use has increased in Japan, and consumers can purchase supplements from foreign countries through the internet. Therefore, it is important to consider both domestic and overseas safety alerts to prevent adverse events associated with dietary supplement use. We have been collecting global safety alerts associated with dietary supplements and providing this information to the public via the "Information system on safety and effectiveness for health foods (HFNet)" website. In this study, we analyzed the characteristics of safety alerts from 2010 to 2016 in HFNet (total: 2,124 alerts). The most common reason for alerts was illegal adulteration with pharmaceutical substances (85%), and sexual enhancement or weight loss products accounted for 68% of all alerts. Most alerts were based on market surveillance reports or recall information. However, 181 adverse event reports were identified, and most of them were related to weight loss or disease treatment in patients. In Japan, a majority of the adverse events was caused by products intended for weight loss or purchased online, and young female users were commonly involved. These findings should be helpful for prevention of adverse events associated with dietary supplement use.
CITATION STYLE
Kobayashi, E., Sato, Y., Umegaki, K., & Chiba, T. (2018). Analysis of safety alerts associated with dietary supplements from Japan and overseas. Journal of the Food Hygienic Society of Japan, 59(2), 93–98. https://doi.org/10.3358/shokueishi.59.93
Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.