DHA might have a EFSA approval thanks to ALA
17 Jun 2010
Juan Valverde
In March 2009 an article 14 children's health claim linking alpha-linoleic (ALA) consumption and brain development submitted by French-based Kraft Biscuits Europe was approved by European Food Safety Agency (EFSA).
Acoording to Nutraingredients, and exceptional Work group meeting between EFSA scientists, industry skateholders and EC representatives have agreed to extend the health claims of ALA into those of DHA (docosahexanoic acid).
The reasons for this extension are based on the assumption that whenALA is ingested, it converts into DHA in hte body. Hence the direct consumption of DHA should be able to have the same effects and consequnetly have similar health claims.
Apparently, conversion in the body of ALA to DHA is not very effective, therefore the direct consumption of DHA might have a stronger effect.
The scientific opinion of the panel that studied the case of ALA already highlighted the importance of DHA in human health. And that ALA was beeing approved for beeing a precusor of DHA.
The EFSA scientific opinion on ALA can be found in the following link:
http://www.efsa.europa.eu/en/scdocs/doc/1005.pdf
