Functional foods: health boon or quackery?
BMJ 1999; 319 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7204.205 (Published 24 July 1999) Cite this as: BMJ 1999;319:205
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It was with interest that I read the above mentioned editorial in the
BMJ on 24 July 1999. Whilst agreeing with many of the points raised in
respect of public health implications, the article rather skates over the
complexities of the regulatory issues. There is no agreed definition of
"functional foods", the only common factor being the making of health
claims.
It is well recognised that diet has a significant impact on health,
particularly the two biggest killers in the UK with:
·130,000 deaths from cancer per year , 30%- 40% of which are estimated as
being preventable through dietary means; and
·152,000 deaths from coronary heart disease and 276,000 deaths from
cardio- vascular disease per year , 30% of which are estimated as being
preventable through dietary means.
This is why consumers need to understand and trust the health
messages on food.
In the absence of adequate regulation in the area of health claims
and a reticence by the European Commission to take firm action in this
area, the Joint Health Claims Initiative has been established. It is a
unique collaboration between the food industry, trading standards officers
and consumer groups which is establishing an innovative approach to self-
regulation. The Code of Practice for the use of health claims on food
which has been developed outlines the general principles to which those
making health claims should adhere and details the type of scientific
evidence required to substantiate a claim. Within the constraints of a
voluntary system, it has also tried to make the Code as binding as
possible, making it clear that complying with the Code should assist
companies to establish a defence of all due diligence if challenged when
making a health claim under the Food Safety Act 1990 and other applicable
laws.
This approach is, as yet, untested but I am optimistic that once the
code is launched in the new year, it will be effective. I am encouraged
in this view because the wide range of representatives who developed the
Code achieved a high level of agreement. Also, there are many common
elements in this Code, and those agreed in other Member States and other
countries which demonstrates a real need and arrival at a solution which
has significant consensus.
Until it has been tried and tested, it is somewhat premature, and
unhelpful, to speculate that it will "bear limited fruit".
Yours faithfully
Roger Manley OBE
Chair, Joint Health Claims Initiative
1 Our Healthier Nation, 1998.
2 World Cancer Research Fund, 1997. Food Nutrition and the Prevention of
Cancer: a global perspective.
3 British Heart Foundation, 1997. Coronary Heart Disease Statistics.
Competing interests: No competing interests
At a recent meeting of Senior Clinicians at Auckland Hospital/Medical
School, it was agreed that about 90% of clinical practise was not based on
science but on oral-tradition.
In the USA a Boeing 747 crashes every day in the 'properly prescribed
and used medicine' sky.
60% of antibiotics are inappropriately prescribed.
There is no evidence of dietary supplements or functional foods
causing health problems.
Why the double standards?
It's not the food industry that needs tighter regulations.
Ron Law
National Nutritional Foods Association
Competing interests: No competing interests
Dear Editor,
There is good evidence that adding thiamine to alcohol containing
beverages will substantially reduce the incidence of Wernicke-Korsakoff
syndrome. Australia has a high incidence, and we probably only correctly
pick a small proportion of those with the syndrome, ante-mortem at least.
Moves to have thiamine added were torpedoed on the pretext that this would
enable promoters to claim alcohol as a health food (much as they are now,
anyway, regarding cardiac disease). So, W-K continues as before. Now
these same regulatory bodies seem unable to prevent a whole new wave of
"health food" quackery - so we cannot have proven beneficial additives but
unproven ones are OK? Am I wrong to believe that as regulatory bodies
proliferate the efficacy of any one diminishes exponentially? And that
this is not just regrettable and expensive, it actually kills people?
Competing interests: No competing interests
Dr.Jacobson's article should be an eye opener to the health
educators. We are being bombarded with manufactured foods the world over.
This gives added responsibility to the health educators, particularly
nutritionists and dietitians, to inform the public about the true picture
of the claims made by the companies that manufacture functional foods.
The benefits of natural foods cannot replace the the benefits of
functional foods.
Thank you for publishing Dr.Jacobson's article.
Competing interests: No competing interests
The God of Small Things
Good answers precede mine. Dr. Jacobson sounds like his principal
issue is fraud and a warm feeling for regulation. The silly business of
food quackery is a natural outgassing of a nutritionally ignorant culture
confronting the marketing craze the often equally silly alternative
medicine fad. Chasing that with legal butterfly nets offers no useful
public recognition of deeper and actually meaningful food based therapy.
The gentleman who writes of his group's effort to establish common cause
with marketers to make sense of the business shows a far greater and
realistic grasp of the matter than does the article in my opinion.
Competing interests: No competing interests