UL REVISION IN FOOD SUPPLEMENTS

Following the task of the European Commission of reviewing the maximum acceptable intake levels (UL) for the different vitamins and minerals that can be added to food supplements, the Spanish Agency for Food Safety and Nutrition (AESAN) has updated the official document which can be found on its website which, as a guide, includes the maximum levels allowed for vitamins and minerals in human nutrition that apply in Spain.

In this way, for the moment the applicable maximums for vitamin B6 and the mineral selenium have been reviewed and updated, resulting in a reduction of the upper safe limits that were aplicable until the update.

Thus, the maximum allowed for Vitamin B6 is 12 mg per day and for Selenium is 255 µg per day. The most drastic reduction has been observed in the case of Vitamin B6 since the previous aplicable UL was 25 mg per day.

Notwithstanding the above, and as we have indicated at the beginning of the post, these levels are only applicable in the case of countries that do not have developed regulations that specifically regulate and establish the maximum levels allowed for vitamins and minerals in food supplements, such as the cases of Spain, Germany, Ireland or Portugal.

On the contrary, other countries such as France, Belgium or Italy do have extensive regulations developed to regulate the manufacture and marketing of food supplements, so each of these countries does have established maximum levels that apply for the use of vitamins and minerals in these products.

As a curiosity, it should be noted that in most cases, these maximum levels regulated at the national level in these countries (France, Italy, Belgium) are more restrictive than those established by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), which are the guidelines in Spain. This means that in the case of a food supplement that is intended to be marketed at the same time in several countries of the European Union with a multilingual label, the most restrictive permitted level of the country in which the food supplement is planned to be marketed must apply.

At LexSupplements Food Legal Consulting we are specialized in the regulations on food supplements in most EU countries, so we help companies in the sector to verify and ensure that the products they put on the different markets are safe and comply with the regulations and administrative procedures to market food supplements with a guarantee.

Do not hesitate to ask us and let us help you with your food supplements notification procedure.