Safety
As the benefits of vitamins and minerals continue to be highlighted, so too do concerns that increased consumption – be it in fortified foods or food supplements – could raise the risk of consumers experiencing adverse effects. While adverse effects are generally associated with only a small number of these nutrients, scientific experts both at national and European level have embarked on a safety review of all vitamins and minerals.
This assessment sets out to:
- analyse and characterise the potential risk associated with intake of vitamins and minerals
- to establish tolerable upper levels of intake
Risk assessment is a purely scientific exercise, however, it impacts on the work of regulators, the food industry and consumers.
ERNA has produced a number of scientifically researched publications exploring the safety of vitamins and minerals, and the risk management models being developed to facilitate it:
Setting maximum amounts of vitamins and minerals in food supplements across the EU is in the hands of the risk managers, namely the European Commission and the Member States.
This publication addresses ‘stage one’ in the risk management process: evaluating the risk of current and future nutrient intakes to the EU population. The methodology is divided into two parts: first, it considers the qualitative categorisation of nutrients into three groups according to risk, and then it proposes a model of how to address each group.
Report published in the 'International Journal of Vitamin and Nutrition Research' on the EANS workshop, organised jointly by ERNA and the European Academy of Nutritional Sciences (EANS).
A clear and simple summary of the rationale used and conclusions reached by the United States Institute of Medicine’s Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) in a similar risk assessment. This short overview is a particularly useful reference point for non-scientists with an interest in risk assessment.
Sets out the main issues related to risk assessment and explains the model currently favoured by risk assessors.