Bitter pill for food supplements

Natural health lobby claims wide range of products will disappear if legislation goes through

NEW EU regulations are set to come into force over the next two years to harmonise the legislation governing food supplements in member countries and to set maximum upper limits for the dosages of vitamins and minerals contained in these products.

The harmonisation of safe upper limits was due to come into force in 2007, but this has proved so contentious that the European Commission is finding it difficult to get agreement on it.

The Alliance for Natural Health, which is part of the Irish Institutes of Nutrition and Health, held a one-day seminar in Bray on Saturday to clarify exactly what is coming down the line from Brussels in the near future in terms of EU regulations and directives around natural health products.

Dr Robert Verkerk, executive scientific director of the UK-based Alliance for Natural Health, says if this new legislation is put in place, it will mean Irish consumers no longer have access to the wide range of products currently available in health food stores – and will be limited to approved products that can be found only in pharmacies and supermarkets.

“We have a serious problem with one of the scientific principles they are using to reduce maximum dosages. If that goes through, it will pretty much render the existing nutritional therapy system that we know of in Ireland, the UK, Sweden and Holland – the four more ‘liberal countries’ – impossible to continue. They are going to introduce a one-size-fits-all system for 27 member states.”

He claims the significant number of people who use nutritional supplements for healthcare will be forced on to the internet where they will be buying completely unregulated products from outside the EU.

Dr Mary Flynn, chief specialist in public health nutrition with the Food Safety Authority of Ireland (FSAI), is firmly on the other side of this argument. She stresses the importance of setting safe upper limits for vitamin and mineral supplements and her views are shared by the Department of Health and the Irish Medicines Board.

“We have no problem with food supplements. Our problem is with high-dose supplements which are being sold unregulated to people who may be on medicine or who may be pregnant and not know it. For public health and safety, we feel we need regulation in this area.”

Flynn says that most people are unaware that vitamins and minerals contained in food supplements are very different to those contained in food. She points out that unlike high dose supplements, you can’t really overdose on vitamins and minerals contained in food, with the exception of vitamin A.

With health shop owners, nutritional therapists and smaller food supplement manufacturers up in arms over the EU proposals, Verkerk says that the only winners here are the giants like Unilever which can afford to pay for widescale studies and have products like Benecol and Flora Proactive approved.

“I would argue that it’s absolutely the wrong time to be placing limits on invaluable vitamins and minerals when we are seeing an increase in health conditions associated with poor nutrition such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity and osteoporosis,” says Verkerk. But Flynn sees huge risks in not creating limits. She says: “Opponents of the harmonisation legislation want to go to up to six times the upper tolerable limit [UTL] in dosage. We say, what’s the point in going beyond the recommended daily allowance [RDA] as this can be very dangerous in some cases?

For example, it would be very dangerous for an older person who is on several different kinds of medication for heart disease, including blood thinners, to take a high dose of multivitamin as vitamin K clots the blood.”

Pointing out that 55 per cent of pregnancies in Ireland are unplanned, Flynn warns of the danger of exposing the foetus to very high levels of nutrients, particularly vitamin A, in the early stages of pregnancy. The FSAI has seen high-dose supplements coming into Ireland of up to 6,000 times the upper limit which they cannot take any action against under the current legislation. “Our basic advice to people is to eat as well as you can and take at least five portions of frozen or fresh fruit or veg a day in the whole form as much as possible. We don’t know why these foods protect against cancer and heart disease but they do,” she comments. Flynn predicts that the harmonised dosage levels set by the EU will be higher than the current RDAs, but that the FSAI will continue to issue warnings on a national basis about the use of food supplements.

WHAT ARE FOOD SUPPLEMENTS?

The EU Directive 2002/46/EC defines food supplements as "concentrated sources of nutrients or other substances with a nutritional or physiological effect whose purpose is to supplement the normal diet".