About 160 Japanese companies have recalled more than 1,500 products made from cow parts as a precaution against mad cow disease, a government survey shows.

Most of the products are cosmetics and other nonmedical products that fall under the health ministry's recently tightened regulations on the use of animals in medicines and cosmetics.

The two fields each account for about 730 to 740 of the products being recalled, including skin creams and lotions made from an extract of cow placentas, ministry officials said.

About 70 of the items being recalled are medical products, while around 50 are considered medical equipment, such as suturing thread, they said.

On Oct. 2 the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry tightened regulations on the use of cud-chewing animals in medicines and cosmetics to include domestically raised ruminant after Japan's first case of mad cow disease was discovered.

On Oct. 5, the health ministry urged the food industry to inspect and voluntarily recall or stop selling products that contain cow parts considered likely to transmit a protein thought to cause mad cow disease.

Consumption of beef infected with mad cow disease is thought to cause a new variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, a fatal brain disorder.