Consumer Resources Beer Yeast, Biotin, Hair Health Functionality Not Recognized
Apr 01, 2025
|
In this regard, the Korea Consumer Agency surveyed the safety, biotin content, and labeling and advertising of 30 products (15 general foods and 15 health functional foods) sold online, and found that all products subject to the survey needed improvement in labeling and advertising. S.aureus and EHEC were not detected in all 30 products under investigation.
According to the Consumer Agency, "Beer yeast is a raw material for general foods dried with yeast filtered after fermenting beer, and biotin is a type of vitamin (B7) and is recognized only for its metabolic and energy-generating functionality in the body. Therefore, even if the product contains these two raw materials, consumer caution is required because it is irrelevant to the hair care effect."
However, it is pointed out that all 30 products surveyed were advocating prevention of hair loss and hair health without scientific evidence. In particular, 14 products were advertised that could be mistaken for hair loss treatments or health functional foods, such as 'Hair loss prevention and treatment' and 'Hair loss nutritional supplements', while the remaining 16 products were also advertising unfairly, such as posting false, exaggerated, or false experiences.
In addition, the biotin content of 29 products except one without added biotin was found to be approximately 0.1 to 350 times higher than the daily nutritional content threshold (30 μg). According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, biotin is contained in various foods, and it is known that healthy people who eat normal meals do not have simple deficiency symptoms, and there are few side effects even if they consume excessive amounts. No cases of side effects caused by biotin intake have been reported, and toxicity has not been expressed when high content is consumed, so most countries, including Korea, Japan, the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, and France, have not set 'upper intake'.
Based on the results of the survey, the Korea Consumer Agency recommended improvements to businesses that manufactured and sold products with inappropriate labeling, advertising and nutritional content. In addition, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety plans to ask the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety to check products advertising hair loss management and hair health. At the same time, consumers were advised to check the product's functionality and health functional food certification marks carefully when purchasing health functional foods after being diagnosed by a specialist if hair loss symptoms appear. According to the Korea Consumer Agency, it can help improve the shine and elasticity of hairOnly businesses that have been individually reviewed by the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety and have been recognized for their functionality can display the functionality on products containing the relevant 'individually recognized raw material', such as millet extraction complexes and fish collagen peptides.
This article was translated by Naver AI translator.
