Sugar with a pharmacy price: How Glucosum pastilles are fooling us

20 francs for 30 lozenges – with sugar, glucose, and an outdated active ingredient? Welcome to the curious cosmos of over-the-counter pharmacy products. Beneath the scientific-sounding label "Glucosum 200 mg ut Glucosum liquidum, Nicethamidum 125 mg, Saccharum 1.1 g" lies an expensive sugar cube with a nostalgia factor.

What’s inside – and why is it so expensive?

A glance at the list of ingredients sounds like pharmaceutical significance, but quickly reveals itself to be a deception:

• Glucosum : Liquid glucose – grape sugar, which you can also buy for a few cents in the supermarket.
• Saccharum : Simple household sugar. Found in every kitchen.
• Nicethamide : An old respiratory stimulant drug from pre-war medicine, now obsolete in many countries.
• Flavorings and additives : To make it look like candy but feel "medicinal."

Value for money? Questionable. For 20 francs, you get a sweet placebo with a fake active ingredient – ​​packaged in the guise of a legitimate medicine.

The trick with the “medical” packaging

It's undisputed that sugar and glucose provide energy. But does that require a "lozenge with additives" that costs over 60 cents each ? Probably not.

What's being sold here is n't primarily the effect, but rather the feeling of doing something "good" for the body. The packaging, the Latin names, the pharmacy setting – all of this creates an artificial sense of value that can hardly keep up with the content.

What remains: Lots of packaging, little substance

In times when transparency and conscious consumption are more important than ever, products like these are a step backward. They cater to the desire for quick energy – with old-fashioned chemicals, spiced up with marketing. A cheap ingredient with an expensive label.

Our conclusion:
🕵️♂️ "Food Sherlock says: Overpriced sugar remains overpriced sugar – even if it's labeled in Latin. If you need energy, you can get it cheaper, healthier, and more honestly."