The petition of John Hemming, an inventor and biohacker, who lives in England.
Declares that he has discovered that a mixture of food substances that are salts of 2-hydroxypropane-1,2,3-tricarboxylate—common name Citrate—can assist in human beings to enable more reliable protein production in cell; further declares that this has considerable benefits to people, particularly for people who have injured themselves as it will accelerate wound healing and it operates by increasing cytosolic levels of acetyl-CoA which facilitates the process of acetylation of nuclear proteins such as splicing factors and the histone, this facilitates the transcription of mRNA thus in essence it is food for the genes to make it easier for them to produce proteins; further declares that he has experimented on himself on over 150 occasions whilst having a venepuncture performed—for a blood test—and the speed of repair is reliably linked to a dose dependent consumption of the food blend; further declares that he has calculated a preferable mixture of a balance of cations between sodium, potassium and magnesium that has a good effect on the balance of cations in the body; further declares that he would wish to make this blend available to the public via one of his companies—Biohacking to Improve Everyone’s Health Team Ltd—and is on the process of marketing it as Cytravo as it is a mixture of food substances with a known safety profile there is nothing to prevent him from selling it in the retail market; further declares that unsurprisingly he would like to be able to tell people of the benefits of the blend; further recognises that there are rightly limits as to what can be said about food supplements as the consumer should not be misled, notes that there is a list of allowed claims, but that since the UK left the EU there has been a committee called the UK Nutrition and Health Claims Committee, which operates as part of the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities in the Department of Health; further declares that there is a nuance in claims in that medicinal claims, rightly, have a higher regulatory control via the MHRA than food supplement claims; further declares that a claim such as “supports the body’s natural process of wound healing” would be a health claim and not a medicinal claim; further declares that the petitioner is open to discussions as to what claim maintains this balance and that the claim in the application is “has been shown to accelerate wound healing in one person.” Which may need modification to ensure it is not a medicinal claim; further declares that the petitioner’s company has made an application to the UKNHCC for it to consider a health claim in connection with the food blend; and notes that the Office for Health Improvement and Disparities has rejected the application as being “not valid” on three grounds; further declares that the first ground is that the systemic review of the literature consists of a poster presented at the British Society for Research on Aging Conference 2024 and a few literature reviews performed by a large language Model—ChatGPT—which is a form of Artificial Intelligence, and notes that the view of the petitioner is that the office should not simply reject an application as not valid because AI has been used as part of the application and the objectivity of AI has merit in this circumstance; further declares is that the second ground is that the experimental evidence involves only one individual and notes the view of the petitioner is that this is gold plating the regulatory requirements and that the strength of the evidence should be balanced against the strength of the claim and further notes that a number of Nobel prizes have been awarded for work based upon self-experimentation and notes the petitioner’s view that what is good enough for the Nobel Committee should not be deemed automatically invalid by the Department of Health’s Office for Health Improvement; further declares that the third ground is that the claim in the application may be a medicinal claim and notes that the petitioner is open to discussing the merits of the claim to ensure it is not a medicinal claim and also supported by the evidence; notes further that although it is important that consumers are protected from false claims it is also important that consumers are not prevented from being informed as to what might be available at a low cost to improve their health and wellbeing.
The petitioner therefore requests that the House of Commons refer the issue of the gold plating of making claims for food supplements to the Health and Social Care Committee for review, and also urge the Government to consider the matter.