How EFSA health claim regulations work. Authorized claims under EU Regulation 432/2012 and what supplement labels can legally state in the European Union.
Almost every 'hair, skin, and nails' supplement leans on the same three EU-authorized claims — and almost as many brands have been caught claiming more than those three actually say.
Chromium has a genuine, EFSA-authorized blood glucose claim — but it's a narrower one than most 'blood sugar support' marketing implies, and the gap between the two is exactly where medicinal-by-presentation risk lives.
Some ingredients aren't restricted because they're dangerous — they're restricted because the EU hasn't had them on the market long enough to have a pre-1997 track record. Here's how the Novel Food framework actually works, using two real examples.
Iron has one of the broadest authorized claim sets of any mineral — covering everything from oxygen transport to cognitive function. But the same nutrient that's genuinely used to treat diagnosed anemia can't be marketed that way as a supplement.
A supplement can cross into unauthorized medicinal-product territory through its marketing alone — even if every ingredient is perfectly legal. The EU legal doctrine behind that line, and why it's stricter than most brands assume.
Vitamin C has one of the longest lists of EU-authorized health claims of any nutrient — but the threshold that unlocks them, and the one claim with its own specific dose, are easy to get wrong.
The European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) is to supplements what the FDA is to pharmaceuticals. If a claim passes EFSA scrutiny, it has undergone the most rigorous review process in the world.
