Yogurt reported to be sending customers rushing to the toilet
The Blueglass Yogurt product is accused of being a "new type of laxative."
A popular yogurt brand has come under fire after it was accused of being a "new type of laxative," Shanghai Television reported recently.
Consumers of a new range of yogurts from Blueglass, a Beijing-registered brand, said they had diarrhea and even abdominal pain, fever, vomiting and acute gastroenteritis after eating the product, it reported.
A reporter who tried the yogurt was said to have suffered from diarrhea and visited toilets several times and had not recovered the following day. Two colleagues had similar symptoms, according to the report.
The yogurt costs 45 yuan (US$6.25) per cup.
A shop assistant was quoted in the report as saying that nobody would escape diarrhea after taking the yogurt and it was not suggested for those with weak gastrointestinal digestive function based on the description page of the product.
Its label says each cup of yogurt contains 13.5 grams of active probiotics for every 100 milliliters. According to doctors, that is 100 times of the recommended daily amount.
"The amount far exceeds the normal recommended intake amount, and the 40-plus-gram dietary fiber amount every cup contains also exceeds the maximum intake limit between 20 and 40 grams daily, which will likely lead to rapid intestinal peristalsis and diarrhea," said Xu Renying, a doctor in Renji Hospital's clinical nutrition department.
Excessive intestinal fermentation will lead to abdominal pain and even diarrhea, thus it does not mean the more probiotics the better, said Wang Hongwei, deputy director of the probiotics and health branch of the Chinese Nutrition Society.
