Levels of vitamins and minerals in food products and food supplements sold in the EU should not be set above the current recommended daily allowances (RDAs), an expert in public health nutrition said today.
Dr Mary Flynn, chief specialist in public health nutrition with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI) was speaking at an open meeting of the Food Safety Consultative Council to discuss developments in EU legislation on food supplements and food fortification.
The European Commission, which has yet to decide on the maximum limits for a list of vitamins and minerals contained in food products is unlikely to set the limits as low as the current RDA levels. Member states, including Ireland, are currently trying to arrive at consensus on the issue. A decision on the limits was due later this month, but the process is likely to be delayed for several more months.
Dr Flynn told The Irish Timesthat from a public health perspective, the FSAI could not recommend any intake of products at above the RDA. RDAs have been revised at five-yearly intervals since the 1990s and the current levels covered the highest level of nutrition requirement in a healthy population. The limits were twice what most people required, she said.
She said the FSAI was not opposed to food supplements.
Speaking to the meeting today, Dr Flynn said there were two areas where food supplements were specifically recommended – folic acid for women of childbearing age and vitamin D for infants.
“Many Irish people take nutritional supplements as a quick-fix solution to a less than healthy diet and see it as an insurance policy that will protect them against the risk of disease. It is very interesting to note that while almost one quarter of us in Ireland take food supplements, very few of us take folic acid or vitamin D, as recommended.”
“Food supplements definitely have an important role, where required, but people need to be careful about the amounts they take. Vitamin and minerals in food supplements are in an active form that the body can use and are very concentrated – so it is easy to ‘overdo’ the safe amount.
Dr Flynn said that taking ‘super-doses’ of some vitamins and minerals upsets the natural balance between nutrients and this can disturb how the body manages these potent substances.
“Taking food supplements is not like taking ‘smarties’ – high doses can interfere with medication and can be dangerous to health. We know that 55 per cent of pregnancies are unplanned. The idea that a woman in the early stages of pregnancy could unintentionally take a very high dose supplement for her tiredness is scary.
"For decades, such high dose food supplements have been considered to be medicinal products in Ireland. Supplements are defined in European law as foodstuffs not medicinal products. However, if a food supplement has a pharmacological effect it is defined as a medicine and is subject to regulations for medicinal products.”
Dr Alan Ruth, chief executive of the industry body the Irish Health Trade Association highlighted the benefits of food supplements and claimed there were weaknesses in the RDA concept, including the fact that they are average values.
Dr Ruth claimed that, from his extrapolations of US figures, the Irish healthcare system could save €262 million over a five-year period through the use of food supplements.
He cited a recently published study in the journal Free Radical Biology and Medicinewhich he said showed no adverse effects from the consumption of vitamin C at doses of 1000mg per day. The RDA for vitamin C is 60mg.
"When the National Academy of Sciences originally drew up the RDAs, it never claimed these represented nutrient intakes designed to achieve optimal health.
"The RDAs were never more than a safety net, with the specific purpose of preventing deficiency diseases. There are three major weaknesses of the RDA concept; firstly that they are average values and do not take into account the needs of the individual, which may be much higher in many circumstances - for example as we get older, live more stressful lives, drink or take the Pill; secondly, the dose sufficient to prevent depletion states is not high enough to guarantee sustained optimal health and thirdly, some absolutely vital nutrients have not yet had an RDA established for them."
Basil Mathioudakis, head of the food law unit at the European Commission’s directorate general for health and consumers (DGSanco) said it would not be a difficult exercise to set minimum levels of vitamins and minerals in food supplements, which it was generally accepted should be at about 15 per cent of the RDA.
But the maximum levels had to take into account other issues, such as “varying consumer senstitivities” and also the reference intakes of vitamins and minerals in the member states’ populations.
He said that most importantly, the European Food Safety Authority had been asked to provide the commission with the “upper safe levels” of vitamins and minerals that had been established by scientific risk assessment.
Mr Mathioudakis said the free movement of goods had enhanced consumer choice. For example, between 50 and 50 food supplements were notified in Ireland in 2004 but this number had increased to more than 1,400 in 2007.
He said the commission continued to review the lists of the substances in such supplements based on the latest scientific evidence in order to ensure their safety.
A period of derogation for member states that had allowed the sale of certain other products containing vitamin and mineral products, which were in use before the adoption of the EU directive in 2006, would shortly come to an end, he added.
Where substances in these products had been submitted for approval to the European Food Safety Authority and rejected, the member states would have to take the “necessary steps” by the end of the transition period, he said.
Mr Mathioudakis said the European Parliament and the council had adopted criteria which should be taken into account for establishing the maximum levels of such substances in food supplements, but they “did not give a blank cheque”.
Today’s meeting also heard concerns from some members of the food consultative council about the sale of certain herbal remedies commonly on sale in stores in shopping centres.
Dr Flynn told the meeting that some herbal remedies are being sold as food supplements but which were actually medicines. She said 6 per cent of products referred to the FSAI as supplements were found to be medicines and referred on to the Irish Medicines Board.
Dermott Jewell, chief executive of the Consumers’ Association of Ireland, said the body favoured the setting of limits for vitamins and minerals in food supplements at the current RDA levels.
Over 80 people registered to attend the forum, entitled Food Supplements – Easy to Take or Hard to Swallow?