In recent years, one of Japan’s policies for controlling increased medical expenses is promoting self-medication. Owing to their influence on the health of young people, energy drinks (a caffeine-containing beverage) have attracted attention. However, only a few surveys have evaluated their use in Japan. Therefore, we conducted a questionnaire survey on university students on self-medication interest and energy drink use trend, involving 180 students aged 18-26 years. The results showed 28.3% of the students were interested in self-medication and 4.4% were knowledgeable on the self-medication tax system. Additionally, 73.9% of them used over-the-counter (OTC) drugs, especially common cold medicines (65.0%). Further, 77.2% of them consumed energy drinks, mainly to stay awake (61.9%), and most frequently from evening to midnight (54.7%). Furthermore, 26.6% of the students had experienced discomfort or poor health when taking energy drinks, with the most common symptoms being “tachycardia” (n＝13) and “sleep disorders” (n＝12). Pharmacy and drugstore pharmacists could contribute to caffeine overdose prevention by educating the public on the caffeine content of common cold medications and various foods and drinks such as energy drinks. It is desirable for future studies to investigate in depth the usage of caffeine-containing beverages, including energy drinks.

In some molecular targeted therapies, skin disorders including acne-like rashes or maculopapular rashes frequently appear, which are often clinically problematic. In Kampo medicine, it has been reported that the combination of jumihaidokuto and orengedokuto (hereinafter called JHT + OGT) is effective for acne. In this study, we report the experiences of JHT + OGT for the treatment of rashes caused by molecular targeted therapies. We extracted patients from June 2013 to June 2017 who took molecular targeted therapies and the treatment with JHT + OGT for skin rashes. The primary endpoint was severity of rashes before and after treatment by JHT + OGT (judged by CTCAE v4.0). In 22 patients (14 males and 8 females), the rashes after treatment with JHT + OGT significantly improved compared with those before treatment (from the median grade of 2 to 1 [p = 0.011]), with 14 cases of improvement, 6 cases of no change, and 2 cases of deterioration. It was suggested that JHT + OGT for skin rashes caused by molecular targeted therapies could be one of the treatment options.