CRN-I Conference Report Highlights Codex Issues

MANNO, SwitzerlandCodex documents, health claims and nutrient references values (NRVs) were the key takeaways from the Council for Responsible Nutrition-International's (CRN-I) second scientific symposium, held on Nov. 11, 2011, in Kronberg, Germany, according to the conference report, which was recently published in the European Journal of Nutrition (2012 Feb 15).

A panel of 13 conference participants, including John Hathcock, Ph.D., senior vice president, scientific and international affairs, the Council for Responsible Nutrition (CRN), developed the conference report.

The report discusses how Codex standards may be used as educational and consensus materials for member governments, and noted the World Trade Organization (WTO) recognizes Codex as the presumptive international authority on food issues. At the symposium, speakers discussed how nutrient bioavailability influences dietary requirements that are the basis of nutrient intake recommendations.

Codex documents have important roles as templates for national regulations, or as the basis for international trade agreements, and they have a distinctive authority and credibility that is derived from their painstaking development of a consensus in a multistep procedure that may take many years," the authors wrote in the report.

With regard the health claims, the conference report said Codex, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) and other national regulatory authorities have established guidelines or regulations allowing for certain claims. The report discusses the issue of evidence-based nutrition versus evidence-based medicine, and points out health claims on foods may provide useful information to consumers, but many will interpret the information to mean they can rely upon the food or nutrient to eliminate a disease risk.

Nutrient Reference Values (NRVs), designed to provide a quantitative basis for comparing the nutritive values of foods, helping to illustrate how specific foods fit into the overall diet,  are also a pressing international issue, according to the report.

It is a testament to the level and quality of discourse that takes place at the event itself that the conference report has now been selected for publication two years in a row in highly regarded, peer-reviewed journals," Hathcock said. The 2010 conference report was published in Regulatory Toxicology and Pharmacology. The first CRNI-I scientific symposium was held in Geneva.

CRN-I is the international arm of the CRN. The CRN-I annual scientific symposium brings together leading scientific, nutrition and regulatory experts from around the world to address critical policy and regulatory topics affecting the global nutrition field. The 2011 conference was attended by nearly 70 members of the scientific and regulatory community.

The third CRN-I scientific symposium is scheduled in Germany for Dec 1, 2012, which is the Saturday before the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU) meeting. A fourth CRN-I symposium is planned for spring 2013 in conjunction with the Codex Food Additives Committee meeting in China.