Nutrient recommendations

The relatively simple dietary guidelines discussed above provide guidance for meal planning. Standards for evaluating the adequacy of specific nutrients in an individual diet or the diet of a population require more detailed and quantitative recommendations. Nutrient recommendations are usually determined by scientific bodies within a country at the behest of government agencies. The World Health Organization and other agencies of the United Nations have also issued reports on nutrients and food components. The Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs), first published by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 1941 and revised every few years until 1989, established dietary standards for evaluating nutritional intakes of populations and for planning food supplies. The RDAs reflected the best scientific judgment of the time in setting amounts of different nutrients adequate to meet the nutritional needs of most healthy people.

Dietary Reference Intakes

During the 1990s a paradigm shift took place as scientists from the United States and Canada joined forces in an ambitious multiyear project to reframe dietary standards for the two countries. In the revised approach, known as the Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs), classic indicators of deficiency, such as scurvy and beriberi, were considered an insufficient basis for recommendations. Where warranted by a sufficient research base, the guidelines rely on indicators with broader significance, those that might reflect a decreased risk of chronic diseases such as osteoporosis, heart disease, hypertension, or cancer. DRIs are intended to help individuals plan a healthful diet as well as avoid consuming too much of a nutrient. The comprehensive approach of the DRIs has served as a model for other countries. A DRI report was published in 1997, and subsequent updates were published for specific nutrients and for some food components such as flavonoids that are not considered nutrients but have an impact on health.

The collective term Dietary Reference Intakes encompasses four categories of reference values. The Estimated Average Requirement (EAR) is the intake level for a nutrient at which the needs of 50 percent of the population will be met. Because the needs of the other half of the population will not be met by this amount, the EAR is increased by about 20 percent to arrive at the RDA. The RDA is the average daily dietary intake level sufficient to meet the nutrient requirement of nearly all (97 to 98 percent) healthy persons in a particular life stage. When the EAR, and thus the RDA, cannot be set due to insufficient scientific evidence, another parameter, the Adequate Intake (AI), is given, based on estimates of intake levels of healthy populations. Lastly, the Tolerable Upper Intake Level (UL) is the highest level of a daily nutrient intake that will most likely present no risk of adverse health effects in almost all individuals in the general population (see table).

Nutrition information is commonly displayed on food labels, but this information is generally simplified to avoid confusion. Because only one nutrient reference value is listed, and because sex and age categories usually are not taken into consideration, the amount chosen is generally the highest RDA value. In the United States, for example, the Daily Values, determined by the Food and Drug Administration, are generally based on RDA values published in 1968. The different food components are listed on the food label as a percentage of their Daily Values.

Confidence that a desirable level of intake is reasonable for a particular group of people can be bolstered by multiple lines of evidence pointing in the same direction, an understanding of the function of the nutrient and how it is handled by the body, and a comprehensive theoretical model with strong statistical underpinnings. Of critical importance in estimating nutrient requirements is explicitly defining the criterion that the specified level of intake is intended to satisfy. Approaches that use different definitions of adequacy are not comparable. For example, it is one thing to prevent clinical impairment of bodily function (basal requirement), which does not necessarily require any reserves of the nutrient, but it is another to consider an amount that will provide desirable reserves (normative requirement) in the body. Yet another approach attempts to evaluate a nutrient intake conducive to optimal health, even if an amount is required beyond that normally obtainable in food—possibly necessitating the use of supplements. Furthermore, determining upper levels of safe intake requires evidence of a different sort. These issues are extremely complex, and the scientists who collaborate to set nutrient recommendations face exceptional challenges in their attempts to reach consensus.