A special committee of Japan's Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, commissioned to review claims for health foods, has decided that the FOSHU (Foods for Specified Health Uses) category could be expanded to allow more health claims, but with a rating of the evidence behind them to offer the consumer the chance to evaluate the product's benefits.
Japan's nutraceutical market is the biggest in the world and although it was one of the first to establish a health claims legislation, FOSHU claims, which must be substantiated by scientific data, are not as widely used as expected.
But a recent report by Paul Yamaguchi and Associates predicts that the Japanese nutraceutical market, currently worth around €18 billion, will more than double by 2012. There is also increasing trade in supplement ingredients manufactured by Western firms, which have benefited from recent changes to the status of products like glucosamine and L-carnitine (both now under food law).
The market could expand further under the new proposals for two new categories of FOSHU product: 'Qualified FOSHU' and 'Standardized FOSHU'. These would be backed by varying degrees of evidence, explains Japan's National Nutritional Foods Association.
At the highest level, the claim would be medically substantiated, whereas B-ranked claims would have only enough evidence to support a current FOSHU approval. The lowest level, C, is for foods where the evidence is adequate to suggest the health benefit but would require a disclaimer.
The proposals also suggest that standardized and currently approved FOSHU products should be able to make risk reduction claims (not currently allowed for FOSHU products), but that they should not be permitted for 'qualified' FOSHU products.
An expert scientific committee will be set up to consider the proposal and the regulatory system for health foods as a whole, with the aim of completing its work by April 2005.