EFSA health claim opinion
Kraft chews on article 13.5 glycaemic health claim win
EFSA’s Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies(NDA) gave the dossier the thumbs up in recommending this claim based on the evidence it perused:
“Consumption of cereal products high in slowly digestible starch raises blood glucose concentrations less after a meal than cereal products low in slowly digestible starch”.
Kraft’s dossier contained five human intervention studies (four of which were proprietary) that showed how slowly digestible starch (SDS) could work to reduce post-prandial glycaemic responses, as compared to rapidly digestible starch (RDS).
“The Panel notes that the studies provided consistently showed that consumption of 40-50% of digestible starch as “SDS” in cereal products containing about 55-70% of available carbohydrates as starch and 30-45% as sugars in the context of a meal providing at least 60% of available carbohydrates induced significantly lower post-prandial glycaemic responses (without leading to disproportionally increased post-prandial insulinaemic responses) than the consumption of all digestible starch as “RDS” in cereal products with a similar content of available carbohydrates, starch and sugars,” the Panel wrote.
“Cereal products, however, providing around 30% of digestible starch as “SDS” and containing around 70% of available carbohydrates as starch and 30% as sugars did not show such an effect. The Panel also notes that a reduction in the sugar content in these cereal products is expected to have a similar effect on post-prandial glycaemic responses.”
To bear the claim products like cereals and biscuits should contain at least 55 % of available carbohydrates as starch of which at least 40% should be “SDS”.
Proprietary data
The Panel also noted that in vitro data alone could have brought it to the same conclusion, “However, the four unpublished studies claimed as proprietary by the applicant were required to establish conditions of use for this specific claim.”
The first company to win an article 13.5 claim was UK firm Provexis for its blood circulation-benefitting tomato extract Fruitflow.
The opinion can be found here.
