Functional Food Science in Europe

The goal of the Functional Food Science in Europe (FUFOSE) concerted action was to reach consensus on scientific concepts of functional foods in Europe by using the science base that supports evidence that specific nutrients positively affect physiological functions. The outcome proposes "a working definition" of functional foods: foods can be regarded as functional if they can be satisfactorily demonstrated to affect beneficially one or more target functions in the body, beyond adequate nutritional effects, in a way relevant to an improved state of health and well-being and/or reduction of risk of disease. Functional foods must remain foods and they must achieve their effects in amounts normally consumed in a diet. Evidence from human studies, based on markers relating to biological response or on intermediate endpoint markers of disease, could provide a sound scientific basis for messages and claims about the functional food products. Two types of claims are proposed that relate directly to these two categories of markers: Enhanced function claims (type A) and reduced risk of disease claims (type B). A new EU Concerted Action will start with, and build upon, the principles defined within FUFOSE. This project PASSCLAIM will (i) produce a consensus on principles for the scientific substantiation of health-related claims for food and food components, (ii) select common criteria for how markers should be identified, validated and used in well-designed studies to explore the links between diet and health and (iii) to evaluate critically the existing schemes which assess the scientific substantiation of claims.