Safety issues of botanicals and botanical preparations in functional foods

Although botanicals have played a role in the marketing of health products for ages, there is an increased interest today due to their perceived health benefits. Not only do consumers increasingly take charge of their health, but the scientific information and understanding of the beneficial health effects of bioactive substances in food, functional foods and food supplements have improved. Increasing use of these products has also led to concerns about their actual safety. Recorded cases of intoxications have triggered such concerns. The safety assessment of these substances is complicated by, amongst others, the variability of composition. Furthermore, consumption of such functional products is expected to produce physiological effects, which may lead to low margins of safety as the margin between exposure of such products and the safe level of intake are likely to be small. The safety assessment of botanicals and botanical preparations in food and food supplement should at least involve: the characterisation and quality of the material, its quality control; the intended use and consequent exposure; history of use and exposure; product comparison(s); toxicological information gathering; Risk characterisation/safety assessment. As a guidance tool, a decision tree approach is proposed to assist in determining the extent of data requirements based on the nature of the such product. This guidance tool in safety assessment was developed by an expert group of the International Life Sciences Institute (ILSI), European Branch, and is currently in press. In this paper a summarised version of this tool is presented.