Cheerios a Drug!

If you've been keeping up with marketing news the last few days, you'll see that there has been a lot of talk about the recent FDA letter to the makers of Cheerios.  In essence, the FDA is saying that if the brand is going to make drug-like claims (in this case, lowering cholesterol), then Cheerios must file a new drug application (NDA) like any product making similar claims.

You can read about it here: http://green.yahoo.com/blog/daily_green_news/63/fda-cheerios-can-t-claim-cholesterol-health-benefits.html

I'm not going to necessarily comment on the actions of the FDA here, although I certainly will in the conference rooms of our clients.  But I will say this, that those of us who have been working in nutri-ceuticals or functional foods since the beginning predicted that this day would come.

We predicted the day where the lines between foods and drugs would get completely blurred. The day where we all recognize that all facets of wellness can come together to help solve a health issue.

I worked at and for Johnson & Johnson in the days when we launched Benecol, Viactiv, and Splenda.  At the time, there was a lot of conversation about how could a drug company possibly be introducing food products -- food products with drug benefits at that.

We knew back then that the lines would blur someday and in fact this direct acknowledgement from the FDA confirms it.

We all deal with health issues, one way or another.  And there is no one fix for any of them.  To stay well, we all have to work with a mix of diet, exercise, stress, sleep, and ans sometimes prescription drugs.  The lines are blurry as to what works best, except that they all work together.  

Cheerios too.

Hope this finds you well -- Jim.