A health claim means any claim that states, suggests or implies that a relationship exists between a food category, a food or one of its constituents, and health (definition under Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006).
In response to a European Parliament parliamentary question on the regulation of the term “detox”, the European Commission stated (reply issued in March of this year) that the term “detox”, when used in relation to foodstuffs, indicates a certain function in the body or an implied effect on health and therefore falls within the scope of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 on nutrition and health claims.
To date, several health claims relating to “cleansing” or “detoxifying” properties have been submitted. All of them have been assessed negatively by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and, as a consequence, have not been authorised for use on the EU market.
It is worth emphasising that in some cases EFSA’s negative opinion did not result from a lack of scientific substantiation, but from an overly general description of the health effect, e.g. “cleansing”, “promotes the elimination of toxins”, “supports the body’s natural cleansing mechanism”, “detox”, “detoxification”. In such cases, EFSA concluded that these are statements that should be regarded as non-specific (general) health claims. [EFSA Journal 2010;8(10):1733]. This fact does not, however, preclude the use of such wording as non-specific claims.
The use of non-specific claims is possible, but only under several conditions. First and foremost, they must comply with the general requirements of Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006, and a specific health claim (authorised or from the “pending” list) must be placed “next to” or “after” the non-specific claim. Importantly, “next to” or “after” does not mean using a footnote or an asterisk and placing the substantiating claim in a different field of vision than the non-specific claim.
“Detox” also appears on the pending list of claims, which may be used only under the applicable conditions of use set out in the legislation until the pending list is finally decided.
The Commission’s interpretation presented in the reply to the parliamentary question is neither new nor surprising. Regulation (EC) No 1924/2006 has applied for 12 years, and the definitions of “claim” and “health claim” contained in it provide the basis for qualifying “detox” as a claim.
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