A supplement seller told buyers its pills could replace blood-pressure medication

Laotangyou Health Tech (上海老糖友健康科技), a Shanghai franchisee of the '天天营养' supplement brand, sold two products to older buyers: a gingko-leaf extract and a coenzyme Q10 and vitamin C blend. Staff pitched both in person and through private-domain livestreams, and the claims went well past a supplement's legal boundary — the gingko product, they said, could improve circulation, lower blood sugar and blood pressure, help with stroke and heart-attack damage, and 'replace blood-pressure medication' in treating coronary heart disease and angina.

The Q10 blend was pitched as something that could steady an irregular heart rate in coronary patients taking it twice a day — a second unlicensed disease-treatment claim riding alongside the first.

China's food-safety law is explicit that an ordinary supplement cannot claim to treat, prevent or replace medication for a named disease — that language is reserved for products cleared as pharmaceuticals, through a much higher bar of evidence. Telling a cardiac patient a supplement can stand in for their prescription doesn't just mislead a buyer about value; it invites someone to alter or skip medication that is actually controlling their condition.

Shanghai's Yangpu district market regulator investigated and fined the company ¥350,000 under the anti-unfair-competition law, one of six cases the city's market regulator named in an October 2025 batch targeting false health claims aimed at elderly consumers.