NutraIngredients NutraTalk Podcast

DSM Nutritional Products' vice president, Nutrition Improvement Program Oswaldo da Costa e Silva explains that the initiative is an integral part of the company's sustainabiltiy vision. Providing products for malnourished people around the world - and especially children in the crucial first 1000 days of life - can help them to develop and contribute to society and the economy.

The high rate of European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) immune health health claim rejections is likely to continue unless parameters of a well-functioning immune system can be defined, according to a Brussels-based industry group.

Differentiating between disease risk factors and disease reduction in the way that the 2006 nutrition and health claim regulation does is too arbitrary and needs revision, according to a German nutrition professor. But if such a change is needed, who should lead the charge?

Restoring a suppressed immune system to full-function could win a health claim, EFSA health claim panelist, Henk van Loveren said at last week’s gut/immune health meeting in Amsterdam.

“I think this field needs more serious mainstream science and less legalistic reasoning.”

The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has repeatedly emphasised that the 2006 EU nutrition and health claims regulation is a learning experience for everyone involved – from its health claims assessment panel to industry stakeholders, to the member states and the European Commission.

“It’s a critical issue to figure out how to show the health benefits with foods without crossing the borderline into medicines,” European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) NDA health claims panel working group member, Maria Saarela, told NutraIngredients at yesterday’s EFSA-hosted immunity/gut health workshop.

The NutraIngredients team at HIE in Madrid discusses the first day of the trade show. Discussions were focused on health claims, and Shane Starling gauged reactions on the latest set of opinions from EFSA, from the likes Volac, Carbery, Glanbia on whey, and from Beneo on sugar replacement and tooth health, fibre and other carb-based products.

NutraIngredient’s Snack Size Science brings you the week's top science every two weeks. This week we look at how probiotics may help keep babies healthy. A healthy baby is a happy baby.

The European Commission decision last week to remove botanicals from the nutrition and health claim process for further review has been welcomed by the botanicals and broader supplements sector.

The European Commission this week pleased industry by announcing it would adopt all article 13.1 health claim opinions in one session and temporarily remove botanicals from the process.

NutraIngredient’s Snack Size Science brings you the week's top science every two weeks. This week we cast our net for the newest science on sourcing fish oil from plants.

In this third and final part of this exclusive NutraIngredients podcast with Professor Albert Flynn, chair of European Food Safety Authority’s Scientific Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA), explains how rejected article 13.1 can be resubmitted to the process.

In part two of this exclusive NutraIngredients podcast, Professor Albert Flynn, chair of European Food Safety Authority’s Scientific Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) refutes criticism the agency is biased toward certain nutrients.

Professor Albert Flynn, chair of European Food Safety Authority’s Scientific Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA) tells Shane Starling how its communication ambitions are being thwarted by a lack of funding.

A change in the nutritional paradigm away from calories towards healthy brain growth is needed if society is to avoid an impending mental health epidemic, leading omega-3 researchers have said.

One day to go until Vitafoods opens it's doors in Geneva. Event director Chris Lee gives a glimpse at last minute preparations, and what will be hot at this year's show. Snail syrup... you heard it hear first.

The European health claims regulations are morphing and industry and the panel members need time to adjust, says a leading industry figure.

Analysts predict that cognitive health is set to become one of the hottest areas of the functional food, beverage and supplement industries. Experts from across Europe are taking the stage at Vitafoods to present where we stand on mental health.

As the drama surrounding the European Union health claims system thickens, Vitafoods hosts a day-long seminar that will unpick key issues from marketing practices to the drug/food borderline to legal and consumer perspectives of healthy food and supplement messaging.

The Food and Drug Administration and the European Food Safety Authority have similar criteria in place when it comes to evaluating health claim-backing evidence – both prefer human intervention trials.

DHA omega-3 is one of the few ingredients to benefit from the European Union nutrition and health claims process so far, and Martek's VP of regulatory affairs, Rodney Gray, looks at developments in other regulatory changes that have affected the sector.

Basil Mathioudakis, the Head of the European Commission unit on Food Law, Nutrition and Labelling tells Shane Starling how it came to be that a whole batch of European Union health claims somehow got lost in the system.

Cantox Health Science International’s Canadian-based, Food and Nutrition associate director, Kathy Musa-Velosa PhD, tells Shane Starling about how risk factors and biomarkers are being used as measures for disease reduction health claims.

How usable are the health claims that have already been approved? First, companies need to see if there is any wiggle room around EFSA’s scientific language. Then, the thorny nutrient profiling is unclear. According to a food lawyer, if agreement can’t be reached nutrient profiles could end up withdrawn altogether.