Advertised as 'Fatigue Recovery Medicine' but Actually 'Sugar Processed Product'... MFDS Detects 138 Cases of False Advertising

Inducing Misunderstanding by Mistaking General Foods for Health Functional Foods
Check for 'Certification Mark' When Purchasing Health Functional Foods

A large number of cases were detected where general sugar-processed products were falsely advertised as having functionalities such as 'fatigue recovery,' 'antioxidant effects,' and 'blood sugar control,' or as being effective in disease prevention and treatment. The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety requested the relevant platform companies to block access to these posts and asked the local governments with jurisdiction to take administrative actions.

On the 5th, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety announced that it had conducted a focused inspection on 280 posts selling sugar-processed products in tablet or capsule form, which are widely sold online, to check for false advertising that could cause misunderstanding or confusion with health functional foods, and found 138 cases of violations.

Sugar-processed products refer to those processed using main ingredients such as sugars, glucose, fructose, malt, sugar syrups, oligosaccharides, and honey.

Recently, as cases of false advertising have been repeatedly detected where sugar-processed products in tablet or capsule form are advertised as health functional foods with functionalities such as fatigue recovery, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety conducted an inspection in January of this year to prevent consumer damage.

As a result, the most common violation was advertising that induced misunderstanding or confusion by mistaking general foods for health functional foods (55 cases, 39.9%), followed by ▲false or exaggerated advertising (40 cases, 29.0%) ▲advertising that induced misunderstanding or confusion as having efficacy or effects in disease prevention or treatment (21 cases, 15.2%) ▲deceptive advertising to consumers (13 cases, 9.4%) ▲advertising that induced misunderstanding or confusion by mistaking general foods for pharmaceuticals (9 cases, 6.5%).

The Ministry of Food and Drug Safety urged, "When purchasing 'health functional food' products recognized by the Ministry for their functionality online, consumers should check for the 'Health Functional Food Certification Mark' displayed on the product before buying."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.