Health food or nutraceutical refers to food that provides medical or health benefits. These products include isolated nutrients in foods, dietary supplements, specific diets, genetically engineered/designer foods, herbal products and processed foods such as cereals soups and beverages.

The sale of nutraceuticals from botanical medicine has increased tremendously over the last decade and still continues to rise. Some pharmaceutical companies have begun producing herbal products and are also now funding innovative life sciences organisations as they merge health care and plant biotechnology.

These botanical nutraceuticals will ultimately compete alongside conventional pharmaceuticals in the US$300 billion global pharmaceutical markets. This is especially so, as recent development in the plant biotechnology has created the tools to produce botanical mixtures at a level comparable to that of 'pure' drug compounds meeting the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) requirements.

Herbs vs drugs

Medicinal plant - Ian Allen/Staff Photographer

It is estimated that 88 per cent of the world's consumers rely on herbals in primary health care and, it is recognised that 25 per cent of all prescriptions dispensed in North America are derived from plants. So it is not strange that the FDA recently established a botanical drug team to develop complex compounds, using botanical extracts, as ethical pharmaceuticals with disease-related claims. Such changes in the regulatory environment now allow for the development of botanicals at a rapid pace.

So, the nutraceutical business is exploding and regulatory agencies will have to keep up with the pace. But, the harmonisation of regulatory requirements for supplements and natural/herbal products is far away, especially in the Caribbean. For example, Trinidadian or Grenadian natural products approved in those countries of origin have to be approved by the regulatory body in Jamaica before importation.

Our manufacturers of herbal products are yet to face Jamaica's regulatory body which is moving at a snail's pace to achieve completion of the amendments of archaic laws to meet the dietary supplements explosion. Nutraceuticals have arrived and yet there are no laws to guide us into this billion dollar industry.

Classification of botanical foods and supplements is paramount so that Jamaica can be a part of this lucrative business. There is so much to gain from our foods, supplements, medicinal plants and wellness industry.