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What is the Recommended Daily value for Vitamins?

May 22, 2008



If you haven’t added “DV” to your vocabulary yet, you probably will before long.

It stands for Daily Value, a new dietary reference value to help consumers use food label information to plan a healthy overall diet.

DVs actually comprise two sets of reference values for nutrients: Daily Reference Values, or DRVs, and Reference Daily Intakes, or RDIs. But these two sets are “behind the scenes” in food labeling; only the Daily Value term will appear on the label to make label reading less confusing.

In fact, said Christine Lewis, Ph.D., a registered dietitian and director of the division of technical evaluation in FDA’s Office of Food Labeling, the Daily Value term is the only one of the terms that will be used in the government’s food labeling education campaign. “The DV term is the one we expect consumers and professionals to use,” she said.

If you want to know what is the recommended daily value for vitamins, it is important to learn that FDA-regulated products must begin using the Daily Value as the basis for declaring nutrient content by May 8, 1994. U.S. Department of Agriculture-regulated products–meat and poultry–have until July 6, 1994.

The move to Daily Values is due in large part to the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990. Among other things, the law requires nutrition label information to be conveyed in a way that enables the public to observe and comprehend the information readily and to understand its relative significance in the context of a total daily diet.

According to Lewis, the DV does that in two ways: First, it serves as a basis for declaring on the label the percent of the Daily Value for each nutrient that a serving of the food provides.

Look at this example to know what is the recommended daily value for vitamins, the Daily Value for fat, based on a 2,000-calorie diet, is 65 grams (g). A food that has 13 g of fat per serving would state on the label that the “percent Daily Value” for fat is 20 percent.

Recommended daily intake (recommended daily allowance) for Vitamins A-K is listed below (for adults only):

Vitamin A 5,000 IU
Vitamin C 60 mg
Vitamin D 400 IU
Vitamin E 30 IU
Vitamin K 80 mcg
Thiamin (vitamin B1) 1.5 mg
Riboflavin (vitamin B2) 1.7 mg
Niacin (vitamin B3) 20 mg
Pantothenic acid (vitamin B5) 10 mg
Vitamin B6 2 mg
Folic acid (vitamin B9) 400 mcg
Vitamin B12 6 mcg
Biotin (vitamin H / vitamin B7) 300 mcg

Notes:

IU – international unit, a measure of vitamin activity determined by biological or chemical analyses.
mg – milligram (1/1000 g)

mcg – microgram (1/1000 mg):

We can consider the recommended daily allowance / recommended daily intake as the minimum nutrient requirement for healthy people to ward off vitamin deficient diseases. However, if you want to know what is the recommended daily value for vitamins, it is important to learn that these values do not represent the amounts of vitamins required for optimal health, which vary among individuals based on their age, diet, health conditions, exposure to toxic chemicals and lifestyle.

In order to know what is the recommended daily value for vitamins, recommended daily allowance / recommended daily intake is also not equivalent to the safe dose of vitamins. In general, vitamins have high safety limits, which can be several times to hundred times more than the recommended daily intake. Water soluble vitamins (vitamin C and vitamin B complexes) have a higher safety limit than fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, K). Excess water soluble vitamins can be excreted readily in the urine whereas excess fat soluble vitamins can accumulate in the liver and can be harmful.

vitamin E Supplements

Vitamin E is an important anti-oxidant essential for proper immune system functioning as well as healthy skin and eyes

- Vitamin E is extremely beneficial in supporting strong immune system.
- It is also helpful in protecting your heart.
- It helps reducing the risk of death from heart related diseases.

Vitamin C Supplements

Vitamin C (ascorbic acid) is a significant vitamin for general health. Because it is water-soluble, the body cannot store the vitamin; you must be certain to get enough daily, either through your diet or supplements.

* Vitamin C is one of the most essential antioxidant that is necessary to carry out over 300 metabolic functions in the body.
* Vitamin C helps in evading the symptoms of asthma, protects against harmful effects of pollution and enhances the immune system.
* It is vital for tissue growth and repair, adrenal gland function and healthy gums.


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