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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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