Landscape of Herbal Food Supplements: Where Do We Stand with Health Claims?

Background/Objectives: Health and nutrition are increasingly important to people, which has increased the popularity of products promoted for their contribution to health, such as food supplements. Methods: This study encompassed 87 herbal food supplements, assessing the compliance of health claims with regulatory requirements. The study was conducted in Serbia, a European country with a regulatory framework harmonized with the one in the EU; however, it requires the pre-market registration of supplements. Results: Health claims were listed on as many as 86.2% of the labels, but only 10.7% of them, all associated with vitamin and mineral ingredients, were compliant with the EU Register of authorized health claims. An additional 38.7% of supplements carried "on-hold" claims from the EFSA Register of questions for botanicals. The remaining ones (50.6%) comprised those attributed with strictly prohibited properties of disease prevention, treatment, or cure (9.3%), and those containing at least one botanical-related health claim out of the scope of the Register of questions. Conclusions: The study unequivocally showed the worrying lack of adherence to regulations in the Serbian settings. Considering the importance of labelling for consumer protection and public health, the authors of this paper advocate for significant improvement in quality assurance of the registration process, tightening of market control, and an effective solution for on-hold claims on botanicals continuously used under transitional regulatory measures.