The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has delivered a positive opinion on vitamin D based on its ability to lower the risk of falling associated with muscle weakness and postural instability.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and World Health Organisation (WHO) have published a 60 point plan as part of a ‘framework for action’ to improve global food and nutrition systems.
The European sports nutrition sector will promote dialogue with regulators at European level ahead of a Commission report due in mid-2015 that could alter the way the multi-billion euro sector is regulated throughout the 28-nation bloc.
A gigantic blue spoon has been unveiled at the International Conference on Nutrition in Rome this week that will be the symbol of the United Nations at the Expo 2015 in Milan next year.
Market pre-eminence has reduced food to a commodity subject to financial speculation, Pope Francis told attendees at a major nutrition conference in Rome this morning.
Two years on from revised European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) guidelines on weight management, the industry is still struggling to produce sufficient evidence to back claims.
The EU’s central science agency has rejected a health claim submission linking prunes (Prunus domestica L) with normal bowel function in under-3s for a lack of infant-specific data. A carbohydrate-based claim was also rejected while zinc and selenium...
A Dutch healthy foods and supplements association has proposed a traditional claims regulation or amendment to EU health claim laws it says would ‘elegantly’ solve the ongoing and stalled imbroglio about how traditional food use data can back claims.
Food companies are moving toward compliance with the upcoming Food Information for Consumers (FIC) regulation but many still have work to do, according to a new report.
A German Winter Olympian has had her doping ban reduced from two years to six months, after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS), agreed the DMAA in her system had likely come from a contaminated food supplement.
The American Herbal Products Association has a launched a database that will track import interruptions. The database, which will be assembled via submissions from member companies and others, will help track long term trends, said Michael McGuffin, AHPA...
A newly approved EU health claim to say folic acid supplements reduce the risk of infant neural tube defects will bring home the nutrient’s importance to women, say a team of campaigners and trade groups behind the claim.
Regulators in Italy’s €1.2bn food supplements market are cracking the harshest whips against health claims abusers in the EU – a firm was recently fined €250,000 – but will the wounds be deep enough to change the market?
A Channel 4 investigation into inorganic arsenic levels in rice has questioned the safety of products aimed at children like rice cakes and Kellogg's Rice Krispies - although all companies implicated say their levels fall within current recommendations.
Last week NutraIngredients published a guest article by author Bert Schwitters about the EU nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR) that discussed the status of botanicals and associated claims in the European Union. Schwitters was not happy with...
Anti-lobbying campaigners have accused new European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker of putting the environment, consumers and workers at small companies at risk with a red-tape-cutting agenda.
The Danish food safety authority has issued a second warning on the illegal herbal weight loss ingredient Acacia rigidula – which contains substances implicated in a brain haemorrhage case in Sweden.
The UK's biggest supplement manufacturer, Vitabiotics, has been censored over two ads for misleading health claims by the UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA).
Nutrition author, blogger and harsh critic of the EU’s health claim laws, Bert Schwitters, says any attempt to create separate rules for more than 1500 on-hold botanical claim applications is doomed to failure in this guest article.
Since 2008 the severity of the EU’s health claim laws has seen many firms seek other routes to back claims – the EU’s medical devices legal avenue being one of them. Amsterdam-based Maikel Hendriks, the CEO of Medical Brands, examines the controversial,...
The position of head of the directorate general for health and consumers (DG SANCO) will likely pass to Czech environmental politician Ladislav Miko following the resignation of Paola Testori Coggi, according to the European Commission.
The UK Health Food Manufacturers' Association (HFMA) appeal against the EU nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR) has been heard in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) more than two years after it was lodged.
Sir Hayden Phillips, the man tasked with performing ‘independent reviews’ of UK Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) rulings, has backed a July ruling against GlaxoSmithKline sports brand MaxiNutrition for exaggerated protein-recovery claims.
Changes to food labelling rules have shaken small- to medium-sized food and drink businesses (SMEs), which fear being put out of business, a leading industry advisor has revealed.
Tony Abbott’s crusade to cut Australian bureaucratic red tape will now target the complementary medicines industry by considering a greater acceptance of international standards.
The Danish food ministry has issued a warning on the weight loss product ‘7 Phenylstack’ following a risk assessment of a plant ingredient which contained amphetamine-like substances.
In its latest work on dietary reference values (DRVs), the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has set population reference intakes (PRIs) for zinc and Adequate Intakes (AIs) for selenium, but advised that setting similar levels for chromium was not...
EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) has delivered positive opinions for two non-digestible carbohydrate ingredients based on their ability to improve blood glucose response.
The European Food Safety Authority is willing and able to cope with the extra workload of novel food assessment that could come under its control, an official said at a European Parliament workshop.
The European Food Safety Agency (EFSA) has granted an extension of use for docosahexaenoic acid (DHA) and eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA)-rich algal oil from Schizochytrium sp. as a novel food ingredient.
The Commission was wrong to separate the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA), nutrient profiles are unconvincing and the threat of botanical court action is unsurprising, a Member of the European Parliament (MEP)...
“almost any carbohydrate-containing food would induce a reduction of post-prandial blood glucose responses"
EFSA has agreed ‘high-fiber sourdough rye bread’ may significantly reduce post-prandial glycaemic and insulin response compared to glucose, but refused a health claim from Fazer in Finland because all foods would have the same effect in comparison to...
The pending health claims for caffeine and bowel-function botanical hydroxyanthracene are the "hot potatoes" being dealt with by EFSA and the European Commission, according to the head of the Commission's unit for nutrition, food composition...
Proposals to create a separate process for novel food approval from countries outside of the EU will not see the market flooded with unsafe foods, a European Commission official told a concerned audience at a European Parliament workshop.
"We aren’t going to wake up one day and everything will be crystal clear; there’s going to be some trial and error going through it.”
By RJ Whitehead & Shane Starling at Health Ingredients-Japan in Tokyo
Japan will implement a new health claims system that is set to supersede its strict FOSHU regime in April 2015 – just six months away – but what form will it take and will it meet its deadline?
By Shane Starling at Health Ingredients-Japan in Tokyo
Japan’s innovative but restricted €25bn functional foods and food supplements sector is about to be handed a set of game-changing marketing keys by the government, industry players told us at Health Ingredients-Japan in Tokyo today.
"As a member of Parliament, I need facts. And I think you, the food industry, have the resources to find those."
By Annie-Rose Harrison-Dunn from the European Parliament in Brussels
The food industry should provide facts if it expects EU decision makers to consider dismantling the controversial novel foods regulation it has long-argued discourages innovation, a UK member of the European Parliament (MEP) said at a workshop in Brussels...
The role of a newly-created food standards body in Scotland has been debated by Members of the Scottish Parliament (MSPs).
“Try telling any marathoner or endurance cyclist that carb drinks and gels don't help them maintain performance over long distances and you'll be laughed out of the room..."
Data backing ‘carbohydrate solutions’ like sports gels to benefit 60-minute-plus endurance efforts have been rebuffed by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), a decision one sports nutrition expert called, “controversial”.
“The applicant provided 47 references which did not address the effects of L. plantarum TENSIA on BP."
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has delivered a negative opinion on a second dossier suggesting that a link a probiotic cheese can benefit blood pressure.
A row has erupted about the threat to scientific expertise available within the Food Standards Agency (FSA) caused by government budget cuts, which critics argue have left the agency seriously short of the skills it needs within its science and policy...
Doctors investigating a Swedish woman’s brain haemorrhage have pointed the finger at the pre-workout food supplement Jacked Power – warning that the event could have been triggered by ingredients chemically similar to amphetamine.
An Italian botanical supplements manufacturer has been given 30 days to pay a €250,000 fine after local authorities busted it for grossly exaggerated and unsubstantiated web-based health claims around immunity, diabetes, HIV, Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s...
Australia’s complementary healthcare industry lobby has called on Canberra to embrace deregulation of non-pharmaceutical medicines as a means to reduce costs while safeguarding consumer health.
Special edition: Inside Europe's food supplement markets
The trade group Food Supplements Europe (FSE) and UK pro-supplements lobby group Consumers for Health Choice (CHC) take differing views on Europe’s food supplements markets and what is best for them and consumers. We present them here…
