As a result of European Union (EU) Exit, on 1 January 2021, Great Britain (GB) became responsible for the scientific assessment of applications for new nutrition and health claims. The UK Nutrition and Health Claims Committee (UKNHCC) was set up to provide scientific risk assessment on nutrition and health claim applications. The UKNHCC has adapted processes established by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and developed its own evolving Framework for the evaluation of evidence for submitted nutrition and health claims. The objective was to evaluate the work of the UKNHCC since its inception in 2021.

Scientific opinions of the UKNHCC were searched via the UKNHCC webpage from 2021 to 30 September 2024. Outcomes evaluated were number of scientific opinions with/without positive outcomes, duration of assessment, proportion of applications adhering to the 5 month assessment period and reasons for applications not receiving a positive scientific opinion.

To date (30 September 2024), the UKNHCC has published 4 scientific opinions(1). All scientific opinions (4/4; 100%), have not received a positive outcome as applications have not had sufficient evidence to substantiate the health claim either due to no evidence or insufficient evidence being provided. Mean duration of assessment was 4.75 months or 4 months and 23 days (based on a 30 day month), taking into account the ‘stop-the-clock’ process on 2 opinions. All scientific opinions (4/4; 100%) were published within the 5 month legal timeframe. The main reasons for scientific opinions not receiving a positive outcome were due to the appropriateness of the dose of the food that is the subject of the health claim to the conditions of use and the applicability of study populations to the target population for the health claim.

Learnings from applications received to date indicate that evidence submitted to support health claims needs to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship between the food that is the subject of the health claim and the claimed effect, such as randomised controlled trials, as set out in the UKNHCC Framework(2). Robust assessment processes put in place by the UKNHCC to assess submitted health claims include risk of bias, such as the Cochrane risk of bias 2 tool for randomised trials(3). Adhering to UKNHCC process and guidance should lead to better quality applications.

The quality of evidence expected for the substantiation of nutrition and health claims is high in order to demonstrate a cause and effect relationship between the food that is the subject of the claim and the claimed effect. High quality evidence is central to the scientific assessment, critical for risk management decisions (whether nutrition and health claims are authorised) and subsequently to ensure that health claims made about a food products/ingredients are accurate and consumers are not misled.