How did FDA conduct the consumer research study?
FDA enlisted 1,920 volunteers who were 18 years of age or older. The volunteers were selected from five different shopping malls across the United States. Participants had to be responsible for at least half of the household food shopping and to be able to read words in the required print size. For the experiment, we selected four hypothetical dietary substance/disease relationships (calcium/osteoporosis, omega-3 fatty acids/heart disease, selenium/cancer, and lycopene/cancer) to represent a range of scientific certainty. These “health claims” do not necessarily reflect authorized health claims allowed under FDA regulations or qualified health claims already considered by the agency. For each hypothetical health claim, we also identified an everyday food product that contained the identified nutrient and met all or most qualifying and disqualifying criteria for other nutrients (calcium/orange juice, omega-3/tuna, selenium/eggs, and lycopene/spaghetti sauce). Participants were shown moc
