Global policy changes on homologous substances of food and medicine

Homologous substances of food and medicine (HSFM) are substances that are both food and traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), implementing the TCM concept of “food and medicine homology”. Due to the improvement of people's standard of living and the high demand for improving the quality of life, the usage of HSFM is becoming more and more common, and the legislative issue of HSFM is becoming more and more urgent. HSFM now have a clearer definition and related management policies, which are constantly being improved and updated. However, there is little research to sort out and analysis the current status of management in each country. Therefore, this paper aims to collect the relevant policies that are publicly available in several country and, in particular, elucidates explicitly the historical traceability of HSFM in China, the evolution of the relevant policies, and the catalogue of HSFM that has been updated to date. The data show that the management of HSFM is similar but not identical among different countries, and that there are areas that can be learnt from each other as well as areas that need to be improved. By analysing the policies of different countries, this paper finds that South Korea, Singapore and China have adopted a catalogue for the management of HSFM, which has avoided the current situation of market scrutiny through a clearer catalogue management.It also points out that there is no country that makes health claims on HSFM in terms of policy, which also limits the development of the HSFM industry to a certain extent. A comparison of policies in different countries shows that policymakers can optimise policies to meet consumer demand and stimulate product development in the market by accelerating the addition of substances to the catalogue of HSFM and attempting to make health claims, among other measures.