Saturday, June 21, 2008 Food supplements can't cure diseases: BFAD
AS FOOD supplements continue to swarm the market, the Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD) on Friday cautioned the public that these products do not have therapeutic effects.
BFAD Director Leticia Barbara-Gutierrez, in an advisory, said: "food supplements could not cure any illness."
"Because of the rising number of 'food supplements' now available in the market and the advertisements or testimonies on their supposedly therapeutic effects, the public is strictly advised that these products only give supplemental nutrients and they do not have medical benefits," she said.
The advisory stated that "in other words, these products could not cure" illnesses.
Gutierrez added that taking food supplements as replacements for medicines in treating an illness is a "wrong thing to do."
BFAD maintained that such practice could lead to complications and other illnesses.
The trade liberalization policy adopted by the government had opened the floodgate for imported products whose quality is now feared to be substandard. (MSN/Sunnex)
