Qualified health claims under assault
The Journal of the National Cancer Institute has just published "The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's Evidence-Based Review for Qualified Health Claims: Tomatoes, Lycopene, and Cancer" . FDA's Claudine J. Kavanaugh and colleagues found no credible evidence that lycopene, either in food or in a dietary supplement, was associated with reduced risk of cancer.
The articled prompted commentary from Sandra Szwarc at Junkfoodscience:
We've often reviewed the inferior evidence surrounding fruits and vegetables and their abilities to prevent major chronic diseases, including the 2004 comprehensive examination of the scientific literature done for the Produce for Better Health Foundation campaign, 5-A-Day, under the National Cancer Institute. That year, a study led by Walter Willet, M.D., DrPH, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at Harvard School of Public Health in Boston, MA, was also published. It had followed 71,910 women and 37,725 men for 15 years and found no relationship between fruits and vegetables and cancer, or any statistically significant associations with major chronic disease or cardiovascular disease.
But, time and again, the media makes little more than a whisper when studies are published questioning claims surrounding the "emerging" science of functional foods and supplements. For instance, how many heard about the May study in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention on lycopene and prostate cancer? Researchers based at the National Cancer Institute and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center had examined 692 cases of prostate cancer diagnosed among 28,000 men enrolled in the Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian (PLCO) Cancer Screening Trial, an ongoing, randomized National Cancer Institute trial to evaluate cancer screening methods and to investigate early markers of cancer. They found no association between serum lycopene and total prostate cancers or aggressive prostate cancers.
No doubt it was a coincidence, but the recently-approved House ag appropriations bill contained language (Section 746) prohibiting FDA from authorizing qualified health claims for conventional foods. Including tomatoes.
