Lectures for the XXIst Century

Functional Food, Panaceaor has the Emperor no Clothes

143 functionaL food, Panacea or has the emPeror no cLothes theo a. niewoLd introduction Over recent decades, there has come about the notion of the importance of food in the maintenance of health and the prevention of disease. Apart from the emphasis on the need for healthy food in general, there is increasing interest in so-called functional foods. Functional foods are essentially foods to which the manufacturers attach health claims. Everybody has seen examples in their own supermarkets, e.g. the margarines which claim to be good for your heart, and the dairy products which claim various beneficial effects for your intestines. Whereas the goal (increasing health and reducing disease) is of course laudable, there is very little, if any, scientific evidence that the current functional foods really work. Why are they then still quite successful in the market, and why can these claims still be maintained? In this piece, I will take a closer look at functional foods, their history and current definition, and what scientific, societal and commercial interests drive their development. We will briefly walk through the various types of functional food, and the claims attached to them. Furthermore, a worrying phenomenon in the functional food business is that their possible negative effects tend to be overlooked. Also, we will look at the current regulatory situation concerning health claims. Towards the end, we pose the question whether (from an evolutionary point of view) it is really likely that food is so important for health. And, finally, we will try and give a balanced answer to the question in the title. a Brief history of food Since time immemorial, the main functions of food have been to make survival possible, satisfy hunger, and to fulfill the requirements of the body, not only providing building blocks, but also contributing to well-being through sensory pleasure. Eating food also has an important social function in most societies. In the in- 144 dustrialized world, we have moved from the phase of survival and hunger satisfaction, through one of sufficient, complete and safe nutrition, to one of optimal nutrition. In real life, the greatest problem concerning food is that we consume too much of it. Anyway, whereas in former times the greatest concerns about food were safety (contamination by bugs and toxins) and deficiencies (vitamins , minerals, etc.), now we see a change into a phase in which there is hope for food as an important tool for the maintenance of health and the prevention of disease. This hope is essentially built on epidemiological data which, according to some researchers, suggest that food contributes by up to approximately 40% to various diseases. Hence it should be possible to influence health and disease by means of food. This has led to a lot of research into the potential health benefits of food and its components. It is important to stress that this type of research is fundamentally different from the earlier research concerning deficiencies and contamination . Now, the emphasis is on potential beneficial health effects beyond the mere nutritional (building block) function of food. This has led to the development of the new and exciting concept of functional food. functionaL food, the definition So, what actually is functional food? Unfortunately, there is no globally accepted definition. Furthermore, it is very important to realize that functional food is not a legal category in most countries (at least not in the EU and the USA), but in general legislation concerns itself with health claims used in labelling or advertising a product. We will address this issue in more detail below. But how is or can functional food be defined? In this paper, we will stick to the working definition as proposed in the European Commission’s Scientific Concepts of Functional Foods in Europe Consensus Document (EUR 1891) dated 2000. This document results from a European Commission Concerted Action coordinated by the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI) Europe, which brings together scientists from academia, government, industry and the public sector. The document has been reviewed and agreed upon by approximately 7 listed scientists, one third of whom are from industry. 14 The Consensus Document says inter alia: “A food can be regarded as ‘functional’ if it is satisfactorily demonstrated to affect beneficially one or more target functions in the body, beyond adequate nutritional effects, in a way that is relevant to either an improved state of health and well-being and/or reduction...