Due to an ever growing awareness of health, there has recently been an increased interest in healthfoods. However, this development is also connected with many problems, including possible interactions between healthfoods and pharmaceuticals and reports of healthfoods being found to contain pharmaceutical substances. As a result, we undertook a survey of the situation regarding healthfoold use among hospital inpatients and also investigated helthfood websites on the Internet. The survey of healthfood use showed that around half of hospital inpatients had previously used healthfood with no variations between the sexes or age groups ; around 30% used healthfoods during their hospital stay. However only 4% of the patients had been asked by medical staff members regarding whether they used healthfoods. Most pharmacies named manufacturers and websites as their source of information on healthfoods. In our survey on the sale of healthfoods over the Internet, in January 2001, before the introduction of standards on the labeling of nutritionally functional foodstuffs, we found that only five out of 25 websites dealing in foodstuffs containing St. John's wort displayed a warning notice (e.g. regarding the side effects and interactions). Six of the 25 sites gave details on the drug usage and permissible dosages. In June 2002, after the introduction of standards on nutritionally functional foodstuffs, we found that 13 of 44 sites displayed a warning notice on St. John's wort and 24 of the 44 had information on the method of use and permissible dosages. Our survey revealed that although one-third of all patients receiving medical treatment were using healthfoods, the levels of awareness among the medical care staff were low. It also becameclear that it is difficult for ordinary consumers to obtain accurate information from the Internet or other sources. In the future it will be necessary for pharmacists, who are supposed to be pharmaceutical specialists, to work together with other medical care professionals to obtain and supply accurate information on healthfoods as well as pharmaceuticals to patients.
