• Journal of Ginseng Research
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• v.29 no.4
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• pp.206-214
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• 2005

The health function food law has been carried into effect from January 31, 2004 just after the proposal of 'a draft of a proposed law concerning the health function foods for the promotion of a nation health' on November 29, 2000 in Korea. After enforcement of health functional food law, there have been difficult market penetration with overall stagnancy of business activities and the current of health functional food within the country divided two groups. In standardized health functional foods the present condition, nutrition supplementary products (938 items) and red ginseng products (351 items) are prevalent and total 32 products are registered containing lactobacilli (297 items), glucosamine (295 items), ginseng (182 items), yeast(136 items) so on. In 2005, five products (products containing green tea extract, soybean protein, plant sterol, fructooligo sugar and Monascus sp. products are newly notified and raw material or component of total 21 products containing xylitol, teanin extract, sardine peptide are recognized as individual authorized health functional foods. Efficacies of ginseng are studied in many-sided researches but benefits of the ginseng in the health functional food law limited to 3 items (staminaresume, immune enhancement, nourishment robustness). To enlarge functionalities of ginseng it needs raw material and ingredient approval through data application to Korea Food and Drug Administration and this procedure acts as barrier of the functional food development in the ginseng industry. It is necessary to develop the authorized health functional foods for leading health functional food market in the future.