After the publication of a draft guidance on the scientific requirements of health claims related to oxidative stress and cardiovascular health, EFSA has recently published the outcome of the public consultation referring to this document and the final version of the guidance.

57 interested parties, including governmental and non-governmental organizations, industry organizations and academia, have participated to the improvement of the document. This public consultation has allowed to clarify various details, mainly related to the biological markers that can be used for the scientific substantiation of health claims. Concerning oxidative damage, and despite that many comments have been formulated, EFSA continue to refuse the assessment of TBARS (thiobarbituric acid reactive substance) as pertinent substantiation. Finally, this final version of guidance states more precisely the requirements for health claims related to blood pressure and homocysteine metabolism.

Find the comments of the various organizations on the EFSA website, as the final version of the guidance. For more information contact our experts.

http://www.efsa.europa.eu/

An observational study, performed in more than 50,000 American nurses for 10 years, surprisingly comes to the conclusion that drinking coffee decreases depression risk.

Indeed, information on coffee consumption but also on other beverages (cola, tea, chocolate) with or without caffeine, were collected from 1996 to 2006 by validated questionnaires. Caffeine intake was also evaluated. Clinical depression was defined as self-reported physician-diagnosed depression and antidepressant use.

The results show that, compared with women consuming 1 or less cup of caffeinated coffee per week, the risk to develop depression was reduced by 15% for those consuming 2 to 3 cups per day and was reduced by 20% for those consuming 4 cups per day or more. Similarly, high intakes of caffeine (> 550 mg/day) were associated with a significant decrease in the incidence of depression (-20%) compared with low intake (<100 mg/d). However, decaffeinated coffee was not associated with depression risk.

This study obviously does not recommend drinking coffee for health reasons or an anti-depressive action. But the results are primarily reassuring for high consumers of coffee. However, beware that this consumption is not associated with an excessive intake of sugar and has no deleterious effect on anxiety and sleep quality as can be seen in some people.

Reference : Lucas M, Mirzaei F, Pan A, Okereke OI, Willett WC, O’Reilly ÉJ, Koenen K, Ascherio A, “Coffee, caffeine, and risk of depression among women”, Arch Intern Med. 2011 Sep 26;171(17):1571-8.

Regulation (EC) 1924/2006 is the corner stone of communication on foodstuffs in the European Union. This regulation, in force since July 2007, notably points out that it is important that health claims related to foodstuffs can be easily understood, and that consumers should be protected from misleading claims. Thus, claims must be exact, truthful, understandable and scientifically justified.

For almost 3 years, EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) has been evaluating generic health claims submitted by stakeholders, under procedure of article 13.1, in order to build up a definitive list of those which will be able to be used.

Among the 4,673 submitted claims, 2,758 claims have been evaluated through 6 successive batches, to lead to a list of 222 positive health claims approved by EFSA. Pursuant to article 13.3 of regulation (EC) 1924/2006, this list was the subject of a draft regulation that was approved today by the Standing Committee on the Food Chain and Animal Health (SCFCAH).

Publication of this regulation should occur in March 2012 after approval of the Parliament.

Four scenarii turn up then:

- claims that received a positive opinion will be present on the Community List and will be authorized and usable across all European Union, if conditions for use are respected;

- claims that received a negative opinion will be present in a Community Register, and shall not appear on communication tools at the end of the 6-months period for putting products in compliance, which will end in September 2012. They will then be forbidden;

- generic claims that are still waiting for evaluation by EFSA will be evaluated later;

- claims still used that haven’t been submitted should have been removed for years but will be clearly unauthorized from March 2012.

This decisive step emphasizes our last advices on the right strategy to follow and the emergency to operate in order to succeed with health claim.

If you haven’t run yet the necessary steps, we still have solutions.

Feel free to contact us in order to work on a tailored strategy for your products.

NutriNet study (launched in 2009) will highlight dietary behaviors of french population and the adequacy of these behaviors to nutritional recommendations of PNNS (National Program Nutrition and Health). First results showed that adequacy is lower in men, young, worker, low-income population, smokers and people living in Northern and Eastern France. The highest adequacy score are found in women, senior officer, high-income population, and people living in Mediterranean, South-West, Central East and in the Paris region.

The weakest-followed recommendations are those concerning the consumption of wholegrain cereals or dairy product (53% are lower). Subjects with good adequacy score of nutritional recommendations have a better vitamin and mineral intake compared with people having lower scores: for vitamin C, 64% more (131 vs 80 mg/d). In normal build subjects, 34% of men and 33% of women have a strong adequacy to the recommendations, while in obese subjects they are 27% and 29%, respectively [Unité de Recherche en Epidémiologie Nutritionnelle, 2011].

With a sufficient number of volunteers and a monitoring of several years, the NutriNet study will show the effects of the different levels of dietary behaviors on cardiovascular diseases, cancers, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, as well as diseases with very high human, social and economic cost such as rheumatoid arthritis, depression, digestive diseases, osteoporosis, thyroid diseases, headaches, asthma, …

The relationship between a sodium overconsumption and cardiovascular events has been widely described. Moreover, nutritional recommendations argue for a reduction of salt intakes. But, is a too large reduction good for health? According to a recent study published in the journal of the american medical association, it seems not to be the case.

By estimating the sodium intakes through its urinary excretion in two cohorts of patients with established cardiovascular disease or diabetes mellitus, the authors have examined the relation between salt consumption and cardiovascular events (cardiovascular deaths, myocardial infarction, stroke, or congestive heart failure). The follow-up has been made during more than 6 years in 28880 patients. The results confirm the association between a high sodium intake and cardiovascular events, with for instance an 11% increase of the risk of cardiovascular death. But interestingly, too limited sodium intakes were associated with congestive heart failure (+5%) and cardiovascular death (+11%). Consequently, nutritional recommendations recognizing a reduction in salt consumption may be reviewed in order to add a minimal recommended intake.

Reference: O’Donnell, M. J., S. Yusuf, A. Mente, P. Gao, J. F. Mann, K. Teo, M. McQueen, P. Sleight, A. M. Sharma, A. Dans, J. Probstfield and R. E. Schmieder (2011). “Urinary sodium and potassium excretion and risk of cardiovascular events.” JAMA 306(20): 2229-2238.