3. Results
3.1. Consumer perceptions on fennel-containing plant food supplements
According to the PlantLIBRA PFS Consumer Survey, the most common reasons for taking fennel-containing PFS were to boost the defense system/immunity, enhance energy/tonics and improve stomach/digestive function (each 22.7% of fennel-containing PFS), followed by body weight loss and for anemia/low hemoglobin/iron (each 18.2% of fennel-containing PFS). Other reasons and conditions given by the consumer were to maintain hair/skin health, to prevent flu/colds, to improve the mood, for healthy joints and bones, for the heart/blood circulation and to maintain general health (each less than 10% of fennel-containing PFS).
The consumers mostly thought that the fennel-containing PFS “always” or “sometimes” helped them (54.5% and 27.3% of fennel-containing PFS respectively). Less than 10% of the fennel-containing PFS were thought to help “rarely”, “not at all”, or the consumer was “not sure”. The majority of consumers of PFS containing fennel did not report adverse effects following their consumption, but one of the products was experienced to cause “stomach upset” and one to cause ”increased urination” (each 4.5% of fennel-containing PFS).