In accordance with the Regulation on the Use of Health Declarations in Food and Food Supplements (“Regulation”) and the Guideline on the Use of Health Declarations in Food and Food Supplements (“Guideline”), health declarations may be used in food and food supplements.

The health claim statements regarding probiotic microorganisms and prebiotic ingredients in the Guideline’s “Annex-1 List of Health Declarations Other than Declarations Regarding Reduction of Disease Risk, Development and Health of Children” were re-evaluated by the Turkish Medicines and Medical Devices Agency (“Agency”).

As a result of the re-evaluation, the Agency decided to change the existing probiotic microorganism health declaration to “Probiotic microorganisms contribute to the balancing of the intestinal microbiota.” with the declaration condition stating “The daily intake must contain at least 1.0×108 CFU/g (cfu/g) of at least one microorganism species.”

Decided to suspend the prebiotic ingredient health claim due to lack of sufficient scientific evidence or official dietary advice.

The Authority announced that only products that are already on the market in accordance with the provisions of the legislation, or products that have been manufactured but not placed on the market and use these health claims, and products that have been contracted to be manufactured and plan to use these health claims on their labels will be able to use the relevant health claims in their current form only on their labels until the date the decision will be finalized.

You can access the public announcement from here. (Only available in Turkish)