Photo/Illutration Naoki Mizuguchi and placebos his company sells (Ryosuke Nonaka)

OTSU--Naoki Mizuguchi sells fake medicine. But he's no con man. His reason for doing so is to help patients avoid drug dependency and other health problems.

“The kanji for fake has two parts,” Mizuguchi explained. “One which means ‘for the sake of,’ and one that means ‘people.’ I'm selling a white lie.”

Mizuguchi came up with a plan to pitch placebos to consumers when the pharmaceutical firm he was working at asked employees for new product ideas.

Now 33, he was in his second year at the firm then, having just joined it in 2012 after studying pharmacy at Kyoto University's graduate school.

An old Japanese saying states that being in a poor state of mind often leads to illness.

Mizuguchi said he thought that since placebos have been reported to have positive effects on some patients’ mental health as the saying, they “might offer a way to change a society that is heavily dependent on medication.”

To target multiple conditions, elderly patients typically take multiple forms of medication.

According to the health ministry, 40 percent of patients aged 75 or older receive five or more kinds of drugs at pharmacies.

Ingesting more drugs heightens the risk of side effects. Patients also become resistant to medicine if they often take antibiotics to deal with mild conditions.

Mizuguchi passionately explained his plan at a company meeting. But it was quickly rejected by others who did not consider it “a role that a pharmaceutical firm should play.”

Determined to make placebos commercially available by himself, Mizuguchi left the company to found Placebo Pharmaceutical Co. here five years ago.

He asked a manufacturer to produce the placebos, and started selling white tablets that have no therapeutic effects six months later on the Internet.

This past summer, the budding entrepreneur published a book about his endeavor.

Placebo Pharmaceutical sells 30-tablet packages of placebos for 999 yen ($9.19), including tax.

The product is legally classified as a type of food product, as the placebo almost consists wholly of sugar and calcium.

Mizuguchi's company markets the tablets for use in various situations, such as for caregivers to give to elderly dementia patients who forget if they've taken their medicine and repeatedly demand drugs, or for parents to give to their kids as a substitute for carsickness medicine.