Promises and Problems of Functional Foods

Abstract

“Functional” foods are branded foods, which claim, explicitly or implicitly, to improve health or well being. We review typical functional foods and their ingredients, efficacy, and safety. We also review regulations for health claims for foods worldwide. These regulations often allow manufacturers to imply that a food promotes health without providing proper scientific evidence. At the same time, regulations may ban claims that a food prevents disease, even when it does. We offer a plea for regulations that will permit all health claims that are supported by the totality of scientific evidence, and ban all claims that suggest an unproven benefit.

Keywords:

• functional foods
• health claims
• regulation
• supplements
• Nutraceuticals

Notes

¹ www.cfsan.fda.gov/∼dms/hclaims.html accessed 17 February 2004.

²Joint Health Claims Initiative, established in 1997 as a joint venture between consumer organisations, enforcement authorities and industry bodies to establish a code of practice for the use of health claims on foods. Website www.jhci.org.uk/code.pdf accessed 17 February 2004.

³European Commission ((http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/fl/fl07_en.pdf visited 24 July 2003).

⁴Code of practice for advertising and labelling for foods and drugs, as worked out by the industries involved. www.koagkag.nl accessed 17 February 2004.

¹See footnote to Table 1 for grading criteria. (++, proven efficacy; + reasonable evidence for efficacy; 0, no solid data; −, evidence for no effect; –– shown not to be efficacious).

¹See footnote to Table 1 for grading criteria. ++, proven efficacy; + reasonable evidence for efficacy; 0, no solid data; −, evidence for no effect; − shown not to be efficacious.

²Most of these ingredients are illegal in conventional foods in the USA; when added to foods the amount is often so low that effects may be much less than from supplements.