Ingredient quality and evidence of safety and effectiveness in health foods

The most important problem of so-called health foods, which are sometimes consumed like medicine to prevent diseases but are legally classified as food, would be the inconsistent quality of ingredients and end-products. The quality of ingredients is extremely important for determining the effectiveness and the safety of the end-product. For quality control of the ingredients, it is necessary to specify the active substances that influence the safety and health-promoting effects. Clarification of these substances will contribute to the development of analytical methods, evaluation of the absorption and metabolism of the substances, manufacturing of end-products with high quality, construction of a quality control system for the commercial end-products, and accumulation and elucidation of experimental data that are obtained at various laboratories. Here, the importance of ingredient quality is introduced based on data that obtained using ginkgo biloba extract, turmeric and tea catechins.