Interpretation of the complete scientific connotation of functional foods accurately prior to approval and registration based on animal tests and small sample size human food tests is challenging. Further technical evaluation after market introduction should be carried out on safety, health function and other aspects of those widely used commercial scale production products. According to the analysis report on the consumption situation of post-marketing population submitted when applying for product registration extension since the implementation of the functional food registration and filing management measures more than 3 years ago, the post-marketing evaluation report of functional food still lacks systematic and perfect evidence support. Based on the successful experience of evidence-based medicine and post-marketing evaluation evidence, this paper analyzes the post-marketing evaluation content, evidence source construction, evidence classification and classification of functional food, and puts forward the preliminary idea of constructing post-marketing evaluation evidence body of functional food safety and health function technology from multiple view points, so as to provide insights into evidence system research in this field in the future.
In January 2020, the State Food and Drug Administration issued the guiding principles of real world evidence supporting drug research & development (R&D) and evaluation (Trial) to guide the development of real world study (RWS) for drug R&D and review decision-making in the future. This guideline has important reference value for developing RWS of health food. Based on the interpretation of the core content of the guiding principles, combined with the common points of RWS and health food interventions, this paper preliminarily discusses the application of RWS to support health food regulatory decision-making so as to provide references for further promoting the application of RWS in the field of health food.