How reliable are the various functions claimed by health food?
The Market Supervision Bureau of Yushui District, Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province conducted targeted sampling inspection on health food varieties that were strongly reflected by the masses. Photo by Liao Haijin/Bright Picture
Lowering blood pressure, lowering blood lipid and controlling diabetes are good for stomach, kidney and liver, and even cure all diseases … … False propaganda and fraud of health food are widespread, and consumers are unbearable. Are the various health care functions promoted by businesses true and effective, and how many scientific evidences are there? Many consumers will be skeptical or fall into a trap. A few days ago, the long-awaited "Management Measures for Raw Materials Catalogue and Health Function Catalogue of Health Foods" was released, which provided institutional guarantee for "managing, managing and optimizing" health foods, making health foods more scientific, effective, safe and healthy, and allowing consumers to better understand the efficacy of health foods.
In recent years, China’s health food industry has developed rapidly with an output value exceeding 300 billion yuan. With the rapid development of the industry, the problems of health food fraud and false propaganda have gradually emerged. Since 2017, the State Council Food Safety Office has jointly carried out special rectification of food health food fraud and false propaganda, and investigated and dealt with nearly 60,000 illegal cases with a value of more than 3 billion yuan.
In order to enhance the efficacy of products, some illegal enterprises illegally add drugs to harm consumers; Some merchants falsely publicize and exaggerate the efficacy, and even blow health food into a "magic medicine" to deceive consumers. At the same time, problems such as low quality of registration declaration and low-level duplication of products also bring difficulties to the review and approval work. "There is an urgent need to deepen reform and innovation, implement the strictest supervision and implement the main responsibility of enterprises." Sun Meijun, deputy director of the State Administration of Markets, said frankly.
According to the Measures for the Administration of Raw Material Catalogue and Health Function Catalogue of Health Foods (hereinafter referred to as the Measures) recently formulated and issued by the General Administration of Market Supervision in conjunction with the National Health and Wellness Commission, China will take the raw material catalogue and function catalogue as the starting point to standardize the scientific evaluation of raw material safety and health function of health foods, and encourage research and development of health foods with more scientific and technological content and more reliable efficacy.
1. The health care function of "unclear"
In today’s endless health care fraud, we need to re-understand health food. According to the Interpretation of People’s Republic of China (PRC) Food Safety Law, health food refers to food that claims to have health care function or aims at supplementing vitamins, minerals and other nutrients. That is, it is suitable for specific people to eat, has the function of regulating the body, does not aim at treating diseases, and does not cause any acute, subacute or chronic harm to the human body.
It can be seen that health food is a kind of special food between ordinary food and medicine. First of all, it is food. Secondly, it is different from ordinary food, and it has certain health care function (that is, function claim), which is the core attribute of this product. Finally, although it has health care function, it does not have the effect of treating diseases, and it is different from drugs.
For health food, function claim is the key, but it is very easy to fall into the predicament of exaggeration and false propaganda, and even fraud, which leads to the "magic medicine" flying all over the sky. Some experts have said that the false propaganda of health food is not all "intentional", but "unclear" by themselves. Because they didn’t make clear the functional mechanism of health food through rigorous scientific research, and lacked sufficient scientific basis, they couldn’t tell consumers exactly how healthy these health foods are and how to play their roles.
Are the various functions claimed by health food scientific and effective? This is the crux of the problem. It is understood that the establishment and positioning of functional claims of food and health food similar products in major countries and regions around the world mainly focus on improving health and reducing risk factors. Specifically, the classified management of health care functions generally includes three categories: nutritional component function claim, general function claim and disease risk reduction claim.
Among them, the function claim of nutritional components refers to the physiological activity of nutrients in human growth, development and normal function. General function claim refers to the specific function of the product for the normal function or biological activity of the human body, contributing to human health, enhancing the body function, maintaining or improving the overall health state, etc. The claim of reducing disease risk refers to the health claim that a certain food ingredient or food (food supplement) can reduce the risk of a certain disease or reduce the degree of health problems, but it cannot be equated with the role of drugs and vaccines in preventing and blocking the occurrence of diseases. For the functional claims of health food, countries generally strictly supervise it, focusing on the correlation between raw materials (ingredients), dosage and functional claims and the adequacy of scientific basis.
The "Measures" issued this time refer to the management of functional claims by international organizations and Europe and the United States, and make it clear that the health care function of health food in China should be aimed at supplementing dietary nutrients, maintaining and improving the health status of the body or reducing the risk factors of diseases, and also put forward the health care function guided by the traditional health care theory. "It has greatly expanded the scope of supplementing micronutrients and regulating specific body functions, and covered the health care needs of the broad masses more comprehensively." Li Keji, a professor at peking university health science center School of Public Health, said.
2. Whether it is effective or not depends on science.
To "clarify" the health care function, we must rely on scientific research. Evaluation of raw materials safety and health care function of health food and catalogue management are the important basis for the dual-track system of filing and registration and approval of health food in China. Whether it can pass the evaluation and be included in the catalogue depends on science.
It is understood that the catalogue of health functions stipulates the range of health functions that health foods are allowed to claim (that is, health functions that have been systematically evaluated and verified and have clear evaluation methods and judgment standards), and the catalogue of raw materials stipulates substances that can be used in health foods after safety and functional evaluation. The "Measures" are based on raw materials and functions to ensure the safety and effectiveness of health food and improve product quality.
In order to ensure the safety, effectiveness, true and reliable functions and stable quality standards of health food raw materials, the Measures strictly stipulate the conditions, procedures and management methods for the inclusion of the catalogue. Sun Meijun introduced that the inclusion of the raw material catalogue is based on the registration and approval of health food in China for more than 20 years and the relevant data of 16,000 registered products. It is necessary not only to review the safety, but also to clarify the dosage of raw materials and the corresponding efficacy, and focus on reviewing its scientific basis.
More importantly, how to ensure the scientific health care function. The "Measures" stipulate that the health functions claimed by health foods should have clear health needs and can be correctly understood and recognized; Have sufficient scientific basis, as well as scientific evaluation methods and criteria; The health care function guided by the traditional health care theory conforms to the traditional Chinese medicine health care theory; There are clear suitable people and unsuitable people.
Moreover, inclusion in the catalogue does not mean that it can be used all the time. "For the raw materials and health care functions included in the catalogue, a re-evaluation and exit mechanism has been set up. If the latest research finds risks and the scientific consensus changes, the catalogue adjustment procedure can be started in time." Sun Meijun said that according to the progress of relevant scientific research and the needs of food safety risk prevention and control, the catalogue of health food raw materials and the catalogue of health care functions should be dynamically managed and adjusted according to the results of re-evaluation.
Liu Xuecong, Secretary-General of China Nutrition and Health Food Association, believes that according to scientific research and progress, it is an inherent requirement for the development of health food industry to dynamically adjust the health care functions that can be claimed, and at the same time, allow new health care functions to be admitted, which is also to meet the growing consumer demand of the masses.
3. Open up innovative R&D paths
It is worth noting that the "Measures" have changed the management mode claimed by functions, emphasized social co-governance and encouraged R&D and innovation. In the past, the evaluation and management of functional claims of health food in China were all arranged by the government. The Measures reformed this "nanny-style" management mode, opened up the innovative R&D path of health food, changed the formulation of health function and evaluation method from a single government-led to multi-subject participation, guided and standardized functional R&D and scientific evaluation, and implemented the main responsibilities of enterprises and R&D institutions.
Specifically, the "Measures" open directory project formulated a model to encourage multi-market players to participate in the catalogue formulation and research and develop new health care functions. On the basis of scientific research and demonstration, any individual, enterprise, scientific research institution and social organization can put forward suggestions for inclusion in the catalogue of raw materials and functional claims of health food, and those that meet the requirements can be included in the catalogue after being reviewed and publicly demonstrated by the competent department according to the procedural requirements, so as to stimulate the enthusiasm, initiative and creativity of enterprises, scientific research institutions and social organizations in developing new materials and functions.
"This can give full play to the scientific research advantages of social resources, improve the scientific evaluation methods of raw materials and functions, solve the problem that the current single government is dominant and the scientific and technological strength is insufficient, improve the quality of filing products and registration applications, and improve the efficiency of evaluation and approval." Sun Meijun said.
In addition, the Measures also encourage enterprises to not only inherit the traditional Chinese medicine health preserving theory, but also make full use of modern biomedical technology, research and develop new products with new functions, change the current situation of low-level duplication of products, and promote the high-quality development of health food industry.
These measures are greatly welcomed by people in the industry. Liu Xuecong told reporters that changing the situation dominated by the government in the past and letting industry enterprises stand at the center of the stage of catalogue and function research will greatly encourage and promote the R&D and innovation of China’s health food industry.
The General Administration of Market Supervision said that it will stick to the safety bottom line, strengthen scientific supervision, fully consider the efficacy orientation of health food, carry out classified management according to traditional consumption history, scientific basis and risk level, strictly supervise new raw materials and new functions, and gradually expand the catalogue of raw materials and functional claims of health food.
4. Comprehensively clean up and adjust health care functions.
The frequent false propaganda and fraud of health food reflects the imperfection of current health function management. The reporter learned that the General Administration of Market Supervision has begun to comprehensively clean up and adjust the health care functions approved in different historical periods in the past, to avoid confusion with the preventive and therapeutic functions of drugs and diseases, to get to the root of the problem, and to plug the loopholes in the claim that the health care functions of health food have been falsely publicized.
"The 27 functions of the current health food have been used for nearly 20 years. With the progress of public cognition and science and technology, its name and label content have not been recognized by the society to a certain extent, and there are also many backwardness and deficiencies in science." Li Keji pointed out.
In March 2019, the General Administration of Market Supervision issued the Announcement on Soliciting Opinions on Adjusting the Health Function of Health Food, which pointed out that after organizing many demonstrations by experts in the fields of medicine, pharmacy, food and nutrition, it is planned to adjust the health function, mainly including: First, canceling the past approvals such as "tumor suppression" and "anti-mutation", which are inconsistent with the existing regulatory positioning of health food, and the products are actually easy to exaggerate and mislead, and are not in line with health needs. The second is to further study and demonstrate the health care functions such as "auxiliary blood lipid lowering" and "auxiliary protection function for radiation hazards"; The third is to adjust 18 kinds of health function claims to improve consumers’ scientific cognition and accurate judgment of health food function claims, such as adjusting "immune regulation/immunity enhancement" to "help to enhance immunity".
The industry believes that adjusting the claim of health care function, further defining and standardizing the source of health care function, and effectively distinguishing health food from medicine can greatly reduce the misjudgment of consumption. The reporter learned that this adjustment proposal is currently soliciting opinions from the whole society, and the General Administration of Market Supervision will also organize experts in the fields of medicine, pharmacy, food and nutrition to carefully analyze and study the collected opinions one by one.
Sun Meijun revealed that in the next step, the market supervision department will have a series of regulatory measures to be introduced one after another. For example, formulate advertising review management measures and strictly review health food advertisements; Orderly carry out the clean-up work of replacement; Strengthen production license review, daily supervision, supervision and sampling inspection, and system inspection; We will carry out multi-sectoral joint law enforcement, severely investigate and deal with all kinds of illegal acts, and crack down on black dens illegally added, illegally sold, and made and sold fakes, and we will never be soft.
However, Sun Meijun reminded: "Health food is not a necessity, and not everyone needs it. On the health food label, there are labels for suitable people and unsuitable people. Consumers should carefully choose according to their physical needs when purchasing. "(Reporter Chen Haibo)