Distinguish between functional foods and drugs?

In today's developed society, the quality of life is getting higher and higher, leading to a greater demand for health care. People tend to prefer using functional foods over drugs because they do not cause side effects. But what are functional foods, what are drugs and what are the differences between them, perhaps not many people understand and recognize. Therefore, we would like to share with readers how to distinguish functional foods and drugs according to some criteria set forth by the Vietnam Association of Functional Foods as follows:

STT	CRITERIA	FUNCTIONAL FOOD	MEDICINE
1	Define	Food used to support the functions of the human body, create a comfortable state for the body, increase resistance, reduce the risk of disease, including food supplements, health protection foods, and medical nutritional foods.	A preparation containing pharmaceutical substances or medicinal herbs for human use for the purpose of disease prevention, disease diagnosis, treatment, disease alleviation, and regulation of human physiological functions, including chemical drugs, herbal drugs, traditional drugs, vaccines, and biological products.
2	Manufacture	According to state regulations on functional foods	According to state regulations on drugs
3	Management agency	Food Safety Department – Ministry of Health	Department of Pharmacy – Ministry of Health
4	Product Label	Clearly state: "Functional food" or "Health protection food" and "The product is not a medicine and does not have the effect of replacing medicine"	Clearly state: this product is a medicine; There are indications, dosage, contraindications
5	Active ingredient content	Not more than 3 times the daily requirement of the body parts.	High
6	Uses	Supports body functions, reduces the risk of disease.	Disease prevention, disease diagnosis, disease treatment, disease alleviation, regulation of human physiological functions
7	Object	The sick, the healthy	The patient
8	Use	Regular (no side effects)	Intermittent (with side effects such as drug resistance, risk of complications, accidents)
9	Source	Nature	Synthetic

By: Ngoc Anh

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