Vitamins and Minerals Supplement

Vitamins and Minerals: How Much Should You Take?

How much of a vitamin or mineral supplement should you take? Are your daily multivitamins enough, or should you worry about vitamin deficiency? Could you already be taking too much? It can be hard to tell -- especially with so many nutritional terms, abbreviations, and numbers out there. Here’s what you need to know.

What the Numbers Mean

To help people better understand the minimum and maximum doses for supplements, the Institute of Medicine has established some guidelines.

The RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowance) and the AI (Adequate Intake) are the amounts of a vitamin or mineral you need to stay healthy and avoid nutritional deficiencies. They are tailored to women, men, and specific age groups.

The UL (Tolerable Upper Intake Level) is the maximum amount of daily vitamins and minerals that you can safely take without risking an overdose or serious side effects. For certain nutrients, the higher you go above the UL, the greater the chance of having problems.

Separate from the RDA and the UL, the FDA uses a different measurement of nutritional intake.

The DV (Daily Value) is the only measurement you’ll find on food and supplement labels. That’s because space is limited, and there’s a need for one single reference number. That number is the amount of a vitamin or nutrient that a person should get for optimum health from a 2,000 calories-a-day diet. The DV is sometimes the same as the RDA and sometimes not.

Although the details may be different, just remember that the RDA and DV are both designed to help us get the nutrients we need to prevent disease and avoid problems caused by malnutrition.

But many people take higher doses of specific supplements in the hopes of gaining other health benefits, like added protection against or treatment of disease.

Is taking doses higher than the RDA or DV safe? For many vitamins and minerals, yes. In some cases, doctors even recommend it. Take vitamin D, for instance. The RDA of vitamin D for a 60-year-old is 600 international units (IU). But for bone health, the National Osteoporosis Foundation recommends 800-1,000 IU for that age group.

How Much Is Too Much?

Because high doses of some supplements can have risks, how do you know when it’s OK to take more than the RDA or DV and when it isn’t?

One way is to look for the UL (tolerable upper intake level) of a nutrient. The Institute of Medicine sets the UL after reviewing studies of that nutrient.

With many vitamins and minerals, you can safely take a dose much higher than the RDA or DV without coming close to the UL. For instance, the average person can take more than 50 times the RDA of vitamin B6 without reaching the upper limit. However, some people develop neuropathy symptoms with these higher levels of B6. So you should always be cautious. Here are some things to keep in mind.

Some supplements are riskier than others. With some vitamins and minerals, the upper limit is pretty close to the RDA. So it’s easy to get too much. For example, a man taking just over three times the RDA of vitamin A would be taking more than the upper limit. High doses of vitamin A -- and other fat-soluble vitamins like E and K -- can build up in the body and cause toxicity. Other risky supplements include the minerals iron and selenium.

Supplements are designed to supplement the diet.  Popping dietary supplements is not the answer to good health. Experts recommend eating a well-balanced, healthy diet and taking supplements to fill in any nutritional gaps. Or you can take a once-daily multivitamin with minerals for nutritional insurance.

The UL is often the limit for all sources of a nutrient. It can include the amount you get from both food and supplements. So when figuring out whether you’re reaching the UL on a particular nutrient, you usually need to factor in the food you eat.

You won’t find the UL on food nutrition labels or on your vitamin bottle. It’s not a number that most people know about. But it is available on government web sites -- and a complete list of nutrients with ULs is listed at the end of this article.

Most supplements don’t have a UL – or RDA or DV. The government has only set levels for a fraction of the vitamins and supplements available. For most of the supplements you see on the shelves, experts really don’t know the ideal or maximum dose.

Many nutrients, in too high a dose, can be dangerous. To be on the safe side, steer clear of the UL for any nutrient. And if you have a health condition, check with your health care provider before taking supplements. Most supplements have possible drug interactions and side effects.

The good news is that the average person is unlikely to take so much of a nutrient that he or she will run into trouble. But it’s always wise to check in with a doctor before you start using a supplement regularly. And that’s definitely true if you’re using any supplement in high doses or for prolonged periods of time.

Table: RDAs and ULs for Vitamins and Minerals

The Institute of Medicine has determined upper limits for 24 nutrients. This table only applies to adults age 19 or older. It also does not apply to women who are pregnant or breastfeeding, because they have different nutritional requirements. Anyone who is under 19, pregnant, or breastfeeding should check with a doctor before using supplements.

Vitamin or Mineral	Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) or Adequate Intake (AI) Nutrients with AIs are marked with an (*)	Upper Tolerable Limit (UL) The highest amount you can take without risk
Boron	Not determined.	20 mg/day
Calcium	Age 1-3: 700 mg/day Age 4-8: 1,000 mg/day Age 9-18: 1,300 mg/day Age 19-50: 1,000 mg/day Women age 51+: 1,200 mg/day Men age 71+: 1,200 mg/day	Age19-50: 2,500 mg/day  Age 51 and up:2,000 mg/day
Chloride	Age 19-50: 2,300 mg/day Age 50-70: 2,000 mg/day Age 70 and older: 1,800 mg/day	3,600 mg/day
Choline (Vitamin B complex)	Age 70 and older: 1,800 mg/day Women: 425 mg/day *	3,500 mg/day
Copper	900 micrograms/day	10,000 micrograms/day
Fluoride	Men: 4 mg/day * Women: 3 mg/day *	10 mg/day
Folic Acid (Folate)	400 micrograms/day	1,000 micrograms/day This applies only to synthetic folic acid in supplements or fortified foods. There is no upper limit for folic acid from natural sources.
Iodine	150 micrograms/day	1,100 micrograms/day
Iron	Men: 8 mg/day Women age 19-50: 18 mg/day Women age 51 and up: 8 mg/day	45 mg/day
Magnesium	Men age 19-30: 400 mg/day Men age 31 and up: 420 mg/day Women age 19-30: 310 mg/day Women age 31 and up: 320 mg/day	350 mg/day This applies only to magnesium in supplements or fortified foods. There is no upper limit for magnesium in food and water.
Manganese	Men: 2.3 mg/day * Women: 1.8 mg/day*	11 mg/day
Molybdenum	45 micrograms/day	2,000 micrograms/day
Nickel	Not determined	1.0 mg/day
Phosphorus	700 mg/day	Up to age 70: 4,000 mg/day Over age 70:3,000 mg/day
Selenium	55 micrograms/day	400 micrograms/day
Sodium	Age 19-50: 1,500 mg/day Age 51-70: 1,300 mg/day Age 71 and up: 1,200 mg/day	2,300 mg/day
Vanadium	Not determined	1.8 mg/day
Vitamin A	Men: 3,000 IU/day Women: 2,310 IU/day	10,000 IU/day
Vitamin B3 (Niacin)	Men: 16 mg/day Women: 14 mg/day	35 mg/day This applies only to niacin in supplements or fortified foods. There is no upper limit for niacin in natural sources.
Vitamin B6	Men age 19-50: 1.3 mg/day  Men age 51 up:1.7 mg/day  Women age 19-50: 1.3 mg/day  Women age 51 up: 1.5 mg/day	100 mg/day
Vitamin C	Men: 90 mg/day Women: 75 mg/day	2,000 mg/day
Vitamin D (Calciferol)	Age 1-70: 15 micrograms/day (600 IU, or international units) * Age 70 and older: 20 micrograms/day (800 IU) *	100 micrograms/day (4,000 IU)
Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)	22.4 IU/day	1,500 IU/day This applies only to vitamin E in supplements or fortified foods. There is no upper limit for vitamin E from natural sources.
Zinc	Men: 11 mg/day Women: 8 mg/day	40 mg/day

Recommended Calorie Intake

Below is a table of recommended dietary intake for different age groups and activity groups.

Everyone should follow the Recommended Calorie Intake (RCI) by calculating the calories in your daily food.

Food Pyramid and Its Evolution

The Traditional Food Pyramid Model

This is the original food pyramid. The bottom of the pyramid is the carbohydrate group, recommending 6-11 servings per day—an aspect heavily attacked by modern nutritionists. On the next level up, we have the vegetable group on the left (3-5 servings per day) and the fruit group on the right (2-4 servings per day). The penultimate level consists of the dairy group on the left (2-3 servings per day) and the protein group on the right (2-3 servings per day). All the way up top is the fat group, which you're supposed to avoid whenever possible. 

Below is a generalisation of a typical every day meal.

• Breakfast: A bowl of cereal with milk, an apple or banana, and two pieces of toast with butter (1 serving of dairy, 1 serving of fruit, 2 servings of carbs, and little fat).P
• Lunch: A lean turkey sandwich with cheese, some cut carrots and celery, a bag of mixed nuts, and a plum (2 servings of protein, 1 serving of dairy, 1 serving of carbs, 1 serving of vegetables, and 1 serving of fruit).P
• Dinner: Grilled chicken, peas and carrots, salad, and a slice of zucchini bread (1 serving of protein, 2 servings of vegetables, and 1 serving of carbs).P

The net total that gets you:P

• Carbs: 4 servingsP
• Fruits: 2 servingsP
• Vegetables: 3 servingsP
• Dairy: 2 servingsP
• Protein: 3 servingsP

The goal of the original food pyramid was to suggest a healthy diet that would be easy for anyone to follow. However, to put the food pyramid into practical test, problems start to occur. 

The Problems:
With this amount of food in a single day, you'd have no trouble getting six servings-worth of carbohydrates. Nonetheless, it only works out to four servings, which is two under the minimum. (More on this later.) 

On the other side of the equation, this set of meals shows the correct number of servings of protein, but doesn't account for the additional protein you get through dairy (for example). 

It doesn't account for all sorts of things, like the high carbohydrate content found in beans or all the dairy that sneaks its way into so many foods and sauces, homemade or manufactured. 

It also doesn't account for many important variables, such as your sex, your height and healthy weight, your daily activity, how different bodies have easier or harder times processing certain foods, and more. 

The original food pyramid was a nice thought, and it's not way off, but it's definitely not a sufficient tool for anybody's diet.

The New Food Pyramid Model

1. Red meat and butter: USE SPARINGLY
2. White rice, white bread, potatoes, pasta and sweets: USE SPARINGLY
3. Dairy or calcium supplement: 1 TO 2 SERVINGS
4. Fish, poultry and eggs: 0 TO 2 SERVINGS
5. Nuts and legumes: 1 TO 3 SERVINGS
6. Vegetables: IN ABUNDANCE
7. Fruit: 2 TO 3 SERVINGS
8. Whole-grain foods: AT MOST MEALS
9. Plant oils (olive, canola, soy, corn, sunflower, peanut and other vegetable oils): AT MOST MEALS

What's important in this revision is that it distinguishes between types of foods that were previously in the same groupings, but could have very different effects on a person's diet. For example, white grains are now separated from whole grains, as current findings point to whole grains as the healthier option.

The biggest fault of any food pyramid, like any set of diet and health guidelines, is that everybody is different, and encounters different eating experiences throughout their day. There are enough similarities to make some general recommendations, but acting on any of those recommendations without factoring in your own specific needs is not the best course of action. Here's how to take the information you find in a food pyramid (preferably the rebuilt pyramid previously mentioned) and actually use it for better eating.

1. Focus on Simple Food

You don't have to take up a macrobiotic diet to do real tracking of your intake, but when you're considering what you eat, you should still consider its parts, rather than the whole.P

Food pyramids break up macronutrients into more specific categories. Problem is, you don't necessarily eat a whole zucchini as part of your meal. Take a turkey sandwich, for example. Eating one of those could end up giving you a serving of protein (the turkey), a serving of dairy (a piece of cheese), and a serving (or more) of carbohydrates (the bread), but it also varies if you're swapping contents and toppings in and out.P

If you're cooking, try to stay on top of everything that goes into that particular dish. It'll help you know the impact on your body once you eat it, but it'll also help you understand what can be added or subtracted to make the meal healthier. While you don't necessarily want to give up cooking, uncooked and unprocessed whole foods can make a great contribution to a healthier diet.

2. Understand the Pros and Cons of Each Food

When choosing foods you want to eat, you're never going to know the full list of nutrients it provides. You can, however, get to know the main pros and cons of certain foods. For example, plums are high in fiber, and black beans are high in protein and carbohydrates. A burrito is a good real-world example of why this information is important.P

Let's say you're building a burrito and you're deciding what to put inside. You start with a tortilla, add beans, and then add rice (among other potential ingredients). Every one of those items provides a significant number of carbohydrates. Knowing which foods are good sources of which nutrients can help you make better decisions when choosing your servings. The food pyramid can be a good guide for choosing those servings, but when you start to get specific you need to know when a food counts as a serving outside of its main category as well.

3. Body Needs

Your daily calorie intake depends on more factors than being human, but that's basically all the food pyramids assume. When you're figuring out how much you need to eat each day to maintain a balanced diet, you should factor in your age, sex, height, weight, level of exercise, and whether or not fat loss is a goal.

Safe diets aren't always as simple as just reducing calories, and you should consult a doctor before making any extreme decisions about your diet, but there are a lot of ways to find out how to determine your daily calorie intake using those factors. www.FreeDieting.com provides a handy calorie calculator that makes suggestions on how many calories you should consume per day. It's good to have your particular needs in mind when you figure out how the serving suggestions on the food pyramid apply to you.

4. Body Problems

In theory we digest and process food in the same ways, but a lot of us have allergies and dietary restrictions. Whether your restrictions are voluntary or not, you probably have to substitute a normal item you find on the food group pyramid for something else. It's important to remember that substitutes can have a major difference in nutritional value and to know what those differences are.P

Let's take lactose intolerance and milk as an example. If you're replacing milk, your most obvious choices are soy milk and rice milk. Rice milk has significantly higher levels of carbohydrates than regular milk and soy milk often has a lot of sugar added (not always the case, but it's always worth checking first). If you don't eat meat and are looking at substitutes, many of them have a very high sodium content that you wouldn't find in actual meat. This isn't necessarily worse, just different. It's important to be aware of the differences in substitutions and not assume you're getting the exact same nutrients you'll find in the item it was designed to replace.

General Tips to Healthy Eating

Do you want to start eating healthily today? Here are a few general tips to kickstart your day.

1. Healthy diets contain a variety of foods

In general, we should include a range of nutritious foods and eat:

- plenty of breads and cereals (particularly wholegrain), fruit, vegetables and legumes (such as chickpeas, lentils and red kidney beans). These food are at the base of the food pyramid and they contain essential carbohydrates, proteins, vitamins and minerals required by the body.

- low-salt foods, and use salt sparingly. Salt increases the risk of developing high blood pressure and should be reduced in consumption.

- small amounts of sugar rich food. Unused sugar is stored in the body as glycogen and fats which will then increase body weight. Sugar rich diet also increases risk of developing diabetes.

- reduce milk and other dairy products which consists of high fat. Fats are stored in your body and is difficult to be broken down into energy.

- drink an adequate amount of water. Our body requires a lot of water for metabolic processes.


2. Keep fat to a minimum

Adult diets should be low in fat, especially saturated fat. Saturated fat, which is the main fat in animal products, fried foods, chocolate, cakes and biscuits, is more easily deposited as fat tissue than unsaturated fat. Saturated fat can also be converted into cholesterol and cause blood cholesterol levels to rise.Dietary fat helps with the absorption of fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E and K).

Small amounts of polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats may have some health benefits when they are part of a healthy diet. Monounsaturated fats are found in nuts, olive oil and avocados, and may help to lower the bad type of cholesterol (low-density lipoprotein or LDL).

Polyunsaturated fats are generally thought to lower blood cholesterol levels. Polyunsaturated omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish, nuts and seeds, are thought to have an anti-clotting effect on blood, to reduce the risk of heart disease and to possibly lower blood pressure.


3. Eat and drink less high-kilojoule foods

The total amount of energy-dense (high-kilojoule) foods you eat may be as important as the total amount of fat in your diet. To reduce the energy density of your diet, you need to increase the amount of plant foods, such as wholegrain breads and cereals, fruit and vegetables that you eat.This will provide essential nutrients, help to make you feel ‘full’ and also reduce the amount of fat in your diet. High energy drinks such as sports drinks, cordials, soft drinks, fruit juice, energy drinks should also be limited.


4. Don’t skip breakfast

Children who skip breakfast generally have poorer nutrition. Their diets contain less: Calcium , iron , dietary fibre , vitamins such as riboflavin and niacin. Skipping breakfast becomes more common as children get older. Some schools have introduced breakfast programs because they were concerned about children who skip breakfast. Children generally perform better at school when they have breakfast. They are also more likely to maintain a healthy weight when they consume a healthy breakfast. Adults who eat a healthy breakfast are more likely be a healthy weight and more productive at work.

healthy breakfast ideas include:

- fresh fruit with wholegrain breakfast cereal and reduced fat milk.

- toast with a thin spread of margarine (polyunsaturated or monounsaturated)

- add in a slice of cheese and tomato onto the toast.

- orange juice

-baked beans on toast.

-fruit or plain yoghurt with fruit.

Introduction to Healthy Eating

WHAT IS HEALTHY EATING ?

Healthy eating is eating adequate nutrients which can improve overall health. A healthy diet composed of nutrients such as fluid, adequate essential amino acids from protein, essential fatty acids, vitamins, minerals, and adequate calories.

Healthy means having or indicating good health in your body or mind. Being healthy is one of the better things in life. When a person is healthy, that person would be able to do or achieve anything in his or her own way. Eating the right kinds of food keeps your body healthy and makes you feel good. Therefore, a balanced diet is one that provides an adequate intake of energy and nutrients for maintenance of the body and therefore good health. 

CLASSES OF NUTRIENTS IN FOOD

Water -

Water is the major element in our body.  Our body composed of 60% of water and our brain need 70% out of the body water. We need at least 8 glasses a day to fullfil our need. We can suffer from dehydration if we drink less than needed. It is also possible to be fatal if we drink too much water.

Carbohydrate -

Carbohydrate is one of the most important source of energy. It is necessary to supply our body with glucose. Carbohydrate is divided into 2 which are simple and complex carbohydrates. Simple carbohydrates digest quickly while complex carbohydrates digest slowly. 

Proteins -

Proteins consist of amino acids which are essential building blocks of life. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within living organisms, including catalyzing metabolic reactions, replicating DNA, responding to stimuli, and transporting molecules from one location to another.

Fats -

Fats is a source of energy and a good storage for energy. Excess carbohydrates are converted to fats to be stored in the body, and when the body is in need, fats are broken down into energy for usage. 

Vitamins -

Vitamins are organic compounds which are needed by the body in limited amount. Many body functions requires vitamins to catalyse the reactions. Vitamins are further classified into fat soluble vitamins and water soluble vitamins.

Minerals -

Minerals are inorganic compounds needed by the body in very limited amount. They help in regulating and catalysing various body functions.