One-third of health products are fake and shoddy

□ The reporter Xiao Jie “Investigation shows that about 1/3 of the common health food products on the market have problems and are fake and shoddy products, while the remaining 2/3 of the label’s qualified products do not have quality. And the efficacy of random inspections.” At the 4th China Beijing International Food Safety Summit Forum recently held, the Beijing Food Association Chairman Jin Zongxi pointed out that at present there are a lot of health food safety issues in China.

The recent news broke this statement: Shenyang has illegal criminals using fake batches, synthesizes so-called secret health foods with side-effect prescription drugs and starch, and claims to lower blood pressure, blood sugar, and blood lipids at the same time. More than a million dollars.

There are also problems with obtaining legally-labelled health foods. Jin Zongxi believes that at present, there are many non-compliances in the promotion of health foods. Some health foods claim to be able to treat diseases. In fact, at most, they can reduce the risk of illness. Many ordinary foods also claim to have special functions.

"The two major characteristics of health foods are safety, and no harm to the human body. Second, it is functional and has a certain physiological regulation effect on specific populations, but it cannot substitute for the therapeutic effects of drugs," said Jin Zongxi.

Jin Zongxi has been engaged in health food research for more than 20 years. He pointed out that the current phenomenon of illegally adding drugs to health foods is indeed very serious. Some weight-loss health foods include fenfluramine and ephedrine; some relieve physical fatigue products such as adding male hormones and sildenafil; some supplemental hypoglycemic health products such as phenelthionine hydrochloride; and some promote growth and development products. Adding growth hormone, as well as improving sleeping products, directly add sleeping pills.

In order to ensure the safety of raw materials for health foods, the state management department has implemented a list management system and announced the list of “banned items for health food”, “a list of items that are both food and drugs,” and “a list of items that can be used for health food”. However, Kim Jong-soo expressed concern about this. Even if the raw materials are on the list, there are potential safety hazards after the extraction and concentration of functional ingredients. "Special attention should be paid to the difference and safety of physiological and pharmacological doses, followed by the interaction of product raw materials."

In addition, endogenous toxicity of Chinese herbal medicine raw materials, safety of genetic engineering raw materials, exogenous pollution of health food raw materials, especially plant raw materials, and allergens in raw materials have not yet been put in place.

Jin Zongxi also expressed concern about the production and processing of health food products. However, related issues are even difficult for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA). FDA had planned to implement GMP (Good Manufacturing Standard) certification in the US dietary supplement industry in 2003. However, the cost of transformation is huge, and 80% of the dietary supplement manufacturers in the United States are small and unbearable. If all these small manufacturers are withdrawn, U.S. consumers will face no product availability. Therefore, only a few large-scale dietary supplement manufacturers finally implemented GMP reform.

Regarding the quality and safety of imported health food products, Jin Zongxi said that some imported products use raw materials out of the list and there are too many nutrient use. For example, China has unified iodine supplements from salt, and some foreign nutrition ingredients also contain iodine, which may have adverse effects on human health.