IFT Recommendations for FDA Functional Foods Policy

Newswise — The Institute of Food Technologists, the international not-for-profit scientific society of food professionals, believes that a few changes to regulatory policies involving functional foods could provide very positive benefits to consumers and consumer health. IFT commended the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for holding Tuesday's public hearing on functional foods and made recommendations to the agency.

In its Expert Report Functional Foods: Opportunities and Challenges released in 2005, IFT's 18-member expert panel defined functional foods as foods and food components that provide a health benefit beyond basic nutrition.

That report, submitted today in testimony by IFT Expert Panel member Barbara Petersen, Ph.D., recommends that product labeling be allowed to accurately reflect current scientific evidence.

"Under existing regulatory policies, some food label claims cannot be factual and still accurately represent the science," Petersen testified. This limits the scope and accuracy of consumer information and hinders the development and marketing of functional foods.

"As long as claims are scientifically valid, enormous public health benefits would result from consumers understanding and acting on the claimed product benefit," Petersen said.

The IFT Expert Panel recommends that FDA prohibit functional food claims relying on preliminary studies and develop guidelines that protect consumers from limited scientific information of no meaningful value.

The IFT Expert Report also urges that the FDA not restrict the health effects of foods to the very limited concept of nutritive value, as the understanding of the interconnections between nutrition and other scientific disciplines is rapidly evolving.

It recommends that the FDA apply instead a policy that health claim benefits for functional foods be based on "nutritive value or through the provision of a physical or physiological effect that has been scientifically documented or for which a substantial body of evidence exists for plausibility," Petersen testified.

It is further recommended that FDA establish independent expert panels to make Generally Recognized As Efficacious determinations. These panels, fully disclosed, would be composed of scientists qualified to determine efficacy of the component under consideration. Panel reports would be submitted to FDA under a streamlined process similar to that used for Generally Recognized As Safe notifications.

At the time of its release in 2005, the IFT Expert Report chairman Fergus Clydesdale, Ph.D., stated "The functional foods currently available represent only a fraction of the potential opportunities for consumers to manage their health through diet."

"It is imperative to validate functional foods' full effectiveness and establish appropriate dietary levels," he said.

Testimony today by Petersen, representing IFT and the IFT Expert Report Functional Foods: Opportunities and Challenges, will be made available online at http://www.ift.org/. The complete Expert Report is available at http://www.ift.org/ExpertReport.

Founded in 1939, and with world headquarters in Chicago, IFT is a not-for-profit international scientific society with 22,000 members working in food science, technology and related professions in industry, academia and government. As the society for food science and technology, IFT brings sound science to the public discussion of food issues. For more on IFT, see http://wwwIFT.org.