Functional Food Fight

As the market booms for functional foods, questions over what they contain are on the rise (see "Pharmafoods' Feel-Good Claims"). To address some of the pressing issues, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a public meeting on December 5, 2006. Although the FDA meekly described the event as a chance to "share its current regulatory framework and rationale regarding the safety evaluation and labeling of these foods," it also served as a warning to industry. "The meeting was an opportunity for the FDA to remind the food and supplements industry of their legal obligations," according to Bruce Silverglade, legal affairs director for the Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI). "The FDA noted that there are already laws about ingredients or the types of claims made on labels," Silverglade said, "and companies need to comply with those laws whether or not they are selling a so-called functional food."

Rather than create a separate category or treat functional foods as dietary supplements, at the meeting Silverglade urged the FDA to regulate them as foods, with added safeguards for products with novel ingredients. In particular, he argued that the FDA needs to issue guidance for "physiologically active substances with no history of use in conventional foods." CSPI's position on regulating functional foods as foods was echoed by the Grocery Manufacturer's Association, while the American Herbal Products Association held that no additional regulations were needed.

Energy drinks, often sold in bars and consisting mostly of sugar and caffeine, served as a focus for CSPI criticism. Drinkers may feel they counteract alcohol's effects, spurring them to get more intoxicated or drive. A Brazilian study of 26 young volunteers found that energy drinks can leave the subjective impression that alcohol consumed is having less effect than tests of motor coordination and visual reaction time show to be the case, as published in the April 2006 Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.