The official plan to regulate the functional expression of health products

According to the website of the State Administration of Market Supervision, the General Administration of Market Supervision issued an announcement on the 28th soliciting opinions on adjusting the health function of healthy food. The announcement pointed out that it was suggested to adjust the statement of some health functions, such as adjusting weight loss to help regulate body fat, and to cancel some health functions, such as promoting growth and development/improving growth and development, and promoting lactation.

The announcement mentions that experts argue that although some of the existing health functions claim to be in line with the regulatory positioning and health needs of health food, there are inaccurate statements, which are easy to be used by false or exaggerated propaganda and mislead consumption. In order to make the function claim more accurate, it is suggested to adjust the expression of some health function claim. If the immune regulation is adjusted to help enhance immunity, the improvement of osteoporosis will be adjusted to help promote bone health, the weight loss will be adjusted to help regulate body fat, the melasma removal will be adjusted to help improve melasma, and the skin moisture improvement will be adjusted to help improve skin. Skin moisture status, will relieve visual fatigue adjustment to relieve visual fatigue, will improve sleep adjustment to help improve sleep.

The announcement is clear that after the publication of the adjustment of the expression of functional claims, the holder of the registration certificate of health food products or the authorized manufacturing enterprise can directly adjust the expression of the relevant functions in the packaging, labels and instructions of their products, without applying for a separate change of registration, the listed products can be sold to the end of the shelf life; in the process of accepting the examination and approval, the reviewing body will directly adjust the merits. It can be claimed that the applicant does not need to make corrections.

The announcement also mentioned that experts argued that some of the existing health functions claimed to be incompatible with the current health food regulatory positioning and health needs, especially for special groups such as children, pregnant women and lactating mothers, which should be more strictly supervised and managed, should be abolished, such as cosmetology. At the same time, we should cancel the health functions approved in the past historical period but no longer accepted for examination and approval, such as (assistant) inhibiting tumors, improving sexual function, cosmetology (breast enrichment), preventing seborrheic alopecia, increasing white blood cells, reducing wrinkles and so on.

The announcement requires that, from the date of the announcement of the abolition of the aforementioned health care functions, the relevant products should stop production immediately. The health food already produced, which does not involve quality and safety, can be sold until the end of the shelf life; and the State Administration of Market Supervision will no longer accept, examine and approve the aforementioned health care functions.

The announcement also mentions that experts argue that due to the historical evolution of regulation, some of the existing health function claims and evaluation methods are easy to be confused with the treatment of drug diseases. It is suggested that the positioning, expression and evaluation methods of some of the existing function claims should be further studied, demonstrated and widely consulted. Such as assistant hypolipidemia, assistant hypoglycemia, assistant hypotension, assistant protection function for chemical liver injury, assistant protection function for radiation hazards, promoting lead excretion, etc.