Healthy tea and senna

　In recent years, due to the growing health consciousness, the number of people who are interested in dieting and those who have a high desire to slimming are increasing. However, dieting due to excessive dietary restrictions and exercise are often difficult and do not seem to last long. The mail-order sales of women's magazines and health food counters are full of health foods that are intended to be easy to lose weight without overdoing.

You can see products sold in the form of tea bags such as "health tea" and "reduced tea". In addition, many products are sold in the form of capsules and tablets. However, it is a mistake to expect dramatic effects on foods that are not pharmaceuticals, and it has been pointed out that "you can lose weight just by drinking" is an exaggeration. In order to actually be effective, some of these healthy teas are products that add drugs such as Senna, a laxative agent, and fenflulamine, an appetite suppressor, which are considered unapproved drugs and are subject to violation of the Pharmaceutical Machinery Act (Fig. 1).

　The term "senna", which is treated as a pharmaceutical, refers to the foliage of a plant called chinerysenna or Alexandriasenna, and the stem is treated as food. If the tea contains only senna stems, there is no problem with the pharmaceutical method. However, when you look at the contents of the tea bag while displaying "Senna stem tea", there are many cases where "senna (senna leaf)" is contained. Also, the contents of the tea bag labeled "Fuyuoi tea" from Korea purchased on the Internet.

Everything was "Senna". In this case, it is a violation of the Pharmaceutical Machinery Act.
　In the test of "senna" in health tea, first check whether Sennoside (the component of Senna) is contained, and if it is contained, the amount of Sennoside is analyzed using a liquid chromatographic device. At the same time, check with a microscope to see if there are senna leaves. "Senna" is characterized by bristles like gills on the back of the leaves (Fig. 2). In the past, "Senna", it was easy to find "Senna", but recently, more and more tea has been put into tea using clever techniques so that "Senna" cannot be confirmed.
　Since many health hazards occurred in July 2002, health foods for diet foods made in China, health hazards and complaints from health foods have increased to the Medical Care Bureau Medical Safety Division and Health and Welfare Center.
　It is meaningless to harm your health with health food. That said, "Nice Buddy" is an eternal theme. We conduct daily inspections, thinking that such health foods for malicious diets will be completely extinct.

Create: 2002