Nutraceutical market development is being crimped by draconian food regulations say 65% of food industry executive, according to a poll conducted by the organisers of Vitafoods Europe.
Conjugated linoleic acid (CLA) is safe for use in foods at doses of 3-3.5g per day, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has affirmed in an opinion broadly welcomed by a key player even if novel foods approval remains elusive.
They’ve had the sword of Damocles hanging over their heads for months. So when 10 firms selling DMAA supplements were finally told to put up or shut up by the FDA last week, it looked like the game might finally be up for the controversial stimulant.
€3 million and seven years of research and development work have paid off for Medical Brands which has won the right to make medical urinary tract infection (UTI) claims in the EU and beyond with its cranberry partner, Decas Botanical Synergies (DBS).
If DMAA (1,3-Dimethylamylamine) exists naturally in geranium - which has been in the food supply for years - synthesized DMAA is also a lawful dietary ingredient permitted for use in supplements, says the American Herbal Product Association (AHPA).
European food and medicines agencies will follow the lead of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) which last week issued warning letters to 10 manufacturers over safety and authenticity concerns for DMAA products, an EU food law expert has said.
There is “no basis” for the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) decision to crack down on firms making supplements containing the stimulant DMAA (1,3-Dimethylamylamine), says retail giant GNC.
It’s official, says the FDA. “Synthetically-produced DMAA (1,3-Dimethylamylamine) is not a dietary ingredient and is not, therefore, eligible to be used as an active ingredient in dietary supplements”.
A court order has silenced Hong Kong research company, CER, and ensured the removal of its report damning Abbott’s infant formula product; action the US giant is ‘pleased’ with.
Nestlé has declined to comment to DairyReporter.com on an Indian government letter stating that it is violating the nation’s laws on sponsorship of health workers, but has fought back against allegations of inappropriate marketing for breast milk substitutes.
The author of a new 452-page book that decimates the European Union nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR) for crippling commercial free speech and consumer choice, says the regulation should be taken to European courts by the end of July this...
The European Commission’s work to create a nutrient profiling system to restrict claims on certain foods will once again come up for discussion in 2013 when the Commission presents its second proposal on the issue, says a leading policy expert.
The British Specialist Nutrition Association (BSNA) says the 222-claim strong, European Union general function health claims list that is set to enter law books as early as next month, is a just reward for the investment made by the food industry across...
Germany’s food safety agency has joined medicines agencies in the UK and Denmark in warning the public about ‘natural’ slimming and erectile dysfunction products spiked with unauthorised drug compounds.
Many food and drink manufacturers are set to abandon health claims approval under new EU legislation and go, instead, for nutrition claims, for which the approvals hurdle is much lower, according to experts.
The soy industry has written to the European Commission highlighting what it sees as serious failings in EFSA’s assessment of its rejected soy protein-cholesterol claim.
Three years late and seeking further extensions, nutrient profiles remain the missing link in the European Union’s new health claim regime. Frustrated stakeholders say the time to decide is nigh.
Last week, Monika Kosinska, the secretary general of the European Public Health Alliance (EPHA), engaged industry in a debate about the worthiness and effectiveness of taxes on unhealthier foods to spur reformulation and healthier eating.
UK firm Direct Healthcare has been rapped by the advertising watchdog over slimming claims for itsBioBIND product that contained cactus extract, chitosan and psyllium husk.
The EU crackdown on health claims is unlikely to impact on US regulators, but it could provide ammunition to opportunistic plaintiffs’ attorneys this side of the Atlantic, experts have warned.
Manufacturers are still not sure how much flexibility they have in wording health claims because guidance from the European Commission (EC) is not yet available.
Frustration at the inability of European Union lawmakers to decide on nutrient profiling rules made unusual bedfellows of health NGOs and Big Food representatives, who have agreed the EU would be better to borrow a model already in use than pursue its...
Dispatches from the 6th Nutrition & Lifestyle conference in Brussels
A 6-year project tackling obesity and other diet and physical activity-related health issues across the European Union has spawned 300 individual positive actions by government, commercial and other actors – and is not set to wind up until next year.
Dispatches from the 6th Nutrition & Lifestyle conference in Brussels
Industry has become accustomed to feeling annoyed and hamstrung by the European Union nutrition and health claims regulation, but UK consumer watchdog Which? told a conference today that the rules should be even more closely enforced to help baffled consumers.
A leading European research and health claims consultancy has panned just-published weight management health claim guidance from the European Food Safety Authority for failing to provide detail on how to progress trial design in a sector that has struggled...
Comments from 49 “interested parties” including Tate&Lyle, Health Canada, GlaxoSmithKline, the University of Leeds, ILSI, Beneo, DSM, Kraft, Kellogg’s and Danone have provoked major changes to a draft weight management health claims guidance.
The evaluation of general function health claims under article 13.1 is “inappropriate and disproportionate”, an alliance of European food, supplement and ingredient companies has said in a letter to the European Parliament president.
Irish MEP Marian Harkin said the European nutrition industry must look forward after a European Parliamentary committee yesterday rejected a bid to overturn a controversial, 222-strong health claims list.
A number of companies in the UK are flouting the EU Traditional Herbal Medicinal Products Directive (THMPD) in the belief that the risks of being reprimanded by regulators are outweighed by the profits that can be gleaned from the sale of unregistered...
The European Parliament’s Public Health and Food Safety Committee (ENVI) has today voted to block the proposed veto to the Article 13 health claims register.
Europe’s coffee makers and energy drink manufacturers are perplexed as to why the EFSA-approved caffeine claims have been dropped from the draft positive list of general function claims.
A German court has rejected global CoQ10 leader Kaneka’s charge that rival Zhejiang Medicine Company (ZMC) and its European Distributor, Kyowa Hakko GmbH Europe, infringed its patent – a ruling ZMC hopes will influence pending actions.
Iron will not help in the battle against female baldness Europe’s central scientific agency has concluded after assessing a dossier submitted by French firm Pierre Fabre Dermo-Cosmétique.
The UK medicines regulator says the plant or synthetic origin of DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine or methylhexaneamine) is irrelevant as its investigations into the disputed sports and weight loss supplement stimulant deepen.
Europe’s premier food industry body, FoodDrinkEurope (FDE), is backing next week’s European Parliament (EP) vote on the controversial 222-strong health claim register, as opponents rally last-minute veto support.
Implementing better growing and manufacturing processes along with increasing the use of modern analytical techniques and greater international regulation would ‘undoubtedly’ reduce the issues surrounding the quality of herbal extracts, say researchers.
Successful or otherwise, the European Union healthy foods and supplements space is unlikely to be much altered by a just-issued legal challenge to the bloc’s controversial nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR), a UK food law expert has said.
The two German professors of law and nutrition that were rebutted by EFSA and the European Commission over a water-hydration health claim have made good their threat, and dragged the controversial EU regulation into court.
Supplement products bearing ingredients like milk thistle, DMAA, valerian, hoodia, porcine thyroid glandular, melatonin and horny goat weed are being targeted by the UK medicines regulator as potential ‘unlicensed medicines’, as EU herbal law enforcement...
British MEP Julie Girling is proposing a ‘middle way’ to the European health claims furore. She wants her fellow European Parliamentarians to back the existing work of EFSA and the European Commission, after which the EP’s newly won power to carry out...
New Zealand has joined the growing list of countries taking action against the stimulant DMAA (1,3-dimethylamylamine), by classing it as a recreational drug.
Irish MEP Marian Harkin has become one of the most vocal European parliamentary opponents of the interpretation and application of the EU nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR), and she was not appeased by EC and EFSA statements at a specially...
The UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) has told Kellogg to revise claims on its Coco Pops website that suggested sugar was unconnected to obesity, disease development and behavioural problems in children.
By Shane Starling at the European Parliament in Brussels
More than 40 European Parliamentarians and their representatives gathered today at a specially convened health claims workshop to explain intricacies and air grievances about the nutrition and health claims regulation (NHCR).
Chia has the potential to become the bestselling health food ingredient in Europe, according to the company looking to secure extended EU novel foods approval for the seed considered a high source of omega-3.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has announced new implementing rules on how to manage declarations of interest and independence in its scientific decision making process.
The newly formed Global Alliance for Probiotics (GAP) has issued its first public statement, affirming that a complete rethink of probiotic health claim rules is required in the European Union, and forwarding industry rights to take part in that process.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has dismissed industry claims that a newly published scientific opinion that sets nitrogen conversion factors (NCFs) to calculate food protein content risks penalising dairy products vis-à-vis lower quality sources...
