The Efficacy of Food for Specified Health Use Recognized by Female Students Studying Health Sciences via Advertisements and Scientific Articles

Abstract

Food for Specified Health Use (FOSHU) includes items approved by the Consumer Affairs Agency of Japan as having health benefits. However, some reports have indicated that FOSHU items do not always show efficacy in daily life, and many users of FOSHU have also made similar claims. It is possible that consumers may not always be aware of the specific conditions of usage required in order for efficacy to be observed. Therefore, we investigated whether female university students majoring in health sciences were able to recognize the conditions of effective usage for some FOSHU items based on advertisements and scientific information in the literature. We found that about 30% of the students were unable to recognize the conditions and usage for FOSHU efficacy. Therefore, it seems that accurate information necessary for obtaining benefits from FOSHU is not being conveyed to students, perhaps accounting for the fact that FOSHU efficacy is not always observed in daily life.