only diet margarine with warning

Submitted by Thomas Pröller, meat-n-more on March 05, 2014, Published in Cardiovascula

Potential health risks: EU writes warning for Unilever's Becel pro.activ ago - foodwatch urges cessation of sales of cholesterol-lowering margarine

The European Union undertakes include Unilever to a new warning on the cholesterol-lowering margarine Becel pro.activ. Since 15. February prescribes Regulation 718 / 2013 manufacturers, people explicitly discouraged without cholesterol problems with added plant sterols before the consumption of food. Thus, the EU bears the evidence of possible health risks. The consumer organization foodwatch criticized that the EU only pretend an inconspicuous, small printed notice, but the free sale of potentially risky foods continuing to permit.

As products like Becel pro.activ lie next ordinary margarine on the supermarket shelf, they are consumed by many consumers who do not even know their cholesterol levels and therefore operate self-medication without medical findings. Here is Becel pro.activ added with plant sterols a highly concentrated and controversial drug. Even children doctoring thus unnecessarily uncontrollably at their blood values around. The EU Regulation requires Unilever now to the warning that Becel "is not intended for persons who do not need to control their blood cholesterol" pro.activ.

“Unilever cannot prove the safety of Becel pro.activ. To date, the company has not carried out the long-term studies that are urgently needed, but expensive," explained Oliver Huizinga, food labeling expert at foodwatch. "If a food is not beyond doubt safe, a footnote should not just be used to warn against consumption - it must be withdrawn from the market." Quasi-drugs should not simply be allowed to be sold over the counter in supermarkets.

Plant sterols, like the ones Unilever adds to the margarine Becel pro.activ, have been proven to lower cholesterol levels. However, studies have fueled the suspicion that they themselves could cause deposits in the vessels and thus heart disease. The German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR) therefore warns that consumption by healthy people without a cholesterol problem should be “expressly avoided”. The health benefit has not been proven either, because a change in blood values (lower cholesterol level) does not necessarily lead to fewer heart diseases.

The consumer organization accuses the Unilever Group of concealing doubts about the health benefits and indications of possible risks. In 2011, citing a scientist, the company claimed: "From a scientific point of view, there is no evidence that the consumption of plant sterol-enriched products is associated with side effects." foodwatch is taking legal action against the dissemination of this statement, since it in the opinion of the consumer organization is not only grossly misleading, but also represents a justiciable untrue statement of facts. In the first instance, the Hamburg Regional Court dismissed the lawsuit, but without assessing the truthfulness of the statement - the judges assessed it as a mere expression of opinion that may be disseminated regardless of its truthfulness. foodwatch has appealed this decision to the Hanseatic Higher Regional Court. A hearing is expected in the first half of 2014.