Health claim concepts

Health Claim Concepts - The FOSHU Concept in Japan... 

Meanwhile, and more importantly, the scientific evidence supporting health claims and functional foods promotes the concept that benefits can be derived from the proper choices of foods. This concept has reached a point at which one cannot deny the need to reappraise the pyramid and, thus, the health benefits that should accrue if one elects to follow a food guide and maximize the health benefits of the resultant food and meal combinations. 

Nurmi E, Nuotio L, Schneitz C (1992) The competitive exclusion concept development and future. Int J Food Microbiol 15 237-240 Okereke A, Montville TJ (1991) Bacteriocin-mediated inhibition of Clostridium botulinum spores by lactic acid bacteria at refrigeration and abuse temperatures. Appl Environ Microbiol 57 3423-3428 Ouwehand AC, Sondberg Svendsen L, Leyer G (2011) Probiotics from strain to product. In Kniebel W, Salminen S (eds) Probiotics and health claims. Wiley, W. Sussex, pp 37-47... 

The success of all food and drinks products is influenced by such factors as advertising, product quality (particularly taste), pricing, and market positioning. Manufacturers of funchonal foods face addihonal challenges, notably the substantiation of health claims, an often unclear regulatory environment, and communicating potentially complex concepts in language that consumers understand and trust. 

As most manufacturers are keen to position functional foods as normal foodstuffs carrying a health claim, it follows that they should be physically positioned in stores alongside traditional products, where possible. However, this may prove problematic for products that appear as new concepts to the consumer. One such example when it was launched in the UK was the fermented milk drink Yakult. Because it was neither a yoghurt, nor a traditional milk drink, it required dual siting, both alongside the drinking milks and in the yoghurt cabinet. 

Lithium for the treatment of manic episodes or bipolar disorder was originally promoted to the public and to the mental health profession as the ultimate example of a specific biochemical treatment for a specific psychiatric disorder. To bolster this claim, it was said that lithium lacks any brain-disabling effects on either patients or normal volunteers. This view of lithium directly challenges the concept of medication spellbinding and brain-disabling principle of psychiatric treatment. Although a number of new drugs have now been added to the mood stabilizer armamentarium, lithium remains the prototype. 

These practical problems have led to the search for simpler and less expensive approaches. The indirect method has become rather popular.It is based on the observation that most analysis results produced in the clinical laboratory seem to be normal, Figure 16-1 shows one example from the author s laboratory. As can be seen, the values of the serum sodium concentration have a distribution with a preponderant central peak and a shape not too far from that of the Gaussian distribution. The underlying assumption of the indirect method is that this peak is composed mainly of normal values. The advocates of the method therefore claim that it is possible to estimate the normal interval If we extract the distribution of normal values from this part of the distribution. Normal limits determined by the indirect method on the basis of the distribution shown in Figure 16-1 would, however, obviously be biased compared with the shown health-associated reference limits. (Note that the term normal is here used intentionally to distinguish between the concepts of normal values and reference values.)... 

The modem factory ferming methods, with poultry, swine, and other farm animals kept in confinement and in crowded conditions, has been condemned by animal rights activists. They claim that because the animals are often not able to perform their natural and instinctive behaviors, they are suffering. Animal science departments have been aware of these criticisms and have developed a new field of farm animal welfare. Faculty positions in the emerging field have been filled, and students are being introduced to tbe concepts. Animal welfare is being studied academically in a manner tbat is validated and measured objectively and, tberefore, is reliable. The discipline considers the relationship of ferm animal welfare to the animals environment in three areas how the animals feel, their fitness and health, and their namral behaviors. 

A. Reservation of the Law. To a great extent, technical safety law uses unspecific legal concepts in the form of general clauses. In addition, standards which set forth in concrete terms how life and health are to be protected from the hazards of technical progress are often merely technical standards which cannot claim any direct force on their own. This could constitute a violation of the principle of the general reservations of the law. 

Japan is the only country to date that has a legal definition of functional foods. The Japanese Ministry of Health s Functional Food Study Comnoittee defines functional foods as foods for specified health use , commonly referred to as FOSHU. The FOSHU concept is based on knowledge concerning the relationships between particular foods or food components and certain expected health benefits. FOSHU have been licensed to bear a label claiming that a person who consumes them may expect to obtain the specified health benefit. 

As for the relation between national business interests and cooperation goals, Brazilian cooperation in health openly claims to be inspired by the concept of the health-industrial complex for health development. ... 

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