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New recommended daily intakes have been set for vitamin A and nine other nutrients. You would think that after all the nutritional studies done on food content we would know by now how much vitamin A the body derives from carotene rich fruits and vegetables. Well, not so.
After reviewing the recent evidence, the institute that sets the upper and lower levels of nutrients that are recommended for maintaining health, has found that darkly colored fruit and vegetables provide less than half the vitamin A than was previously thought. This means that people need to consume twice as much from these sources to meet the daily requirements. New levels have also been set for vitamin K and many essential minerals. The table below shows the new recommended daily intakes:
| Nutrient |
Lower Limit/Average Intake |
Upper Limit |
| Vitamin A |
900 ug (700 ug for women) |
3000 ug |
| Vitamin K |
120ug (90 ug for women) |
None |
| Chromium |
35 ug (25 ug for women) |
None |
| Copper |
900 ug |
10,000 ug |
| Iodine |
150 ug |
1,100 ug |
| Iron |
8 ug (18 ug for premenopausal women) |
45, 000 ug |
| Manganese |
2.3 mg (1.8 mg for women) |
11,000 mg |
| Molybdenum |
45 ug |
2 mg |
| Zinc |
11 ug (8 ug) |
40,000 ug |
| nickel |
RDI not established |
1,000 ug |
This information is a summary of a report published by the Institute of Medicine (Jan 2001). For the full report, see our resource section for the link to the site on recommended daily allowance.
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