Recommended Daily Allowance for Vitamins

What they mean to you

During the Second World War, certain nutrition organizations felt it was a good idea to create some standard for nutrient intake. You might be able to see where this is going.... How good do you think the standards were for people fighting in the war?

You're right! They weren't very good at all.

These standards, or recommended daily allowances for vitamins and other nutrients were very low. Meaning the guidelines given for nutrient intake were at a level that was meant to prevent scurvy, polio, rickets, and so on.

These diseases are associated with very low levels of nutrients.

It doesn't make sense to sit there and follow the recommended daily allowance for vitamins that were designed to help soldiers survive during the war. And from this we get a very clear statement:

The recommended daily allowance for vitamins is not intended for optimal levels of health!

Let's examine exactly what the RDAs do.

The RDAs measure the amount of a typical nutrient that is needed to prevent deficiencies. Deficiencies meaning: leading to some type of chronic disease. An extreme example would be this:

If you need to drink 20 glasses of water a week just to stay alive, the recommended daily allowance for water intake would be 20 glasses of water.

Now that's a bit of a silly example, but it shows how following the current recommended daily allowance for vitamins is not enough!

The recommended daily allowance for vitamins is not specific to different individual's needs. If someone is suffering from some sort of illness, following the RDAs is probably not the best idea.

Ok, this is just the tip of the iceberg, it gets a little worse!

The good news is that every decade, the RDAs get updated and reviewed. The bad news is that there have been times, particularly back in the late 80s that the recommended daily allowance for vitamins has been lowered.

It was believed that Americans were healthy, which right off the bat is false. Because the majority of the population was not suffering from disease such as scurvy and polio, they were categorized as healthy.

Due to this assumption, along with the fact that these healthy Americans failed to meet the previous RDAs, the RDAs were lowered!

So because we no longer develop diseases that were common during the time or World War 2, and because most people don't even get the current recommended daily allowance for vitamins, they were lowered!

Now, considering all the facts about adequate levels of nutrition, and most specifically vitamins, you would think that something else may be behind the RDAs standards.

Well one could argue that the pharmaceutical industry may be putting pressure on the decision makers. Remember this is an industry that makes money off people's illnesses.

It wouldn't be good business for them if everyone knew how important it was to take higher levels of vitamins because then they might not have to prescribe to drugs later on.

Also, if you look at some of the big companies that produce vitamins that are sold in general health stores, or bulk stores like Wal-Mart, you'll notice that their prices are very low. What would happen if the RDAs suddenly were increased to measure optimal levels of nutrition?

Well those low priced vitamins companies would have to increase the quality of their products which would drive up the price.

Big stores like Wal-Mart don't like you raising your prices. Therefore, these companies probably have an interest in keeping the RDAs low, and you and I are the ones that suffer.

Now, I'm not saying that all this is true, it's just something to think about :)

RDAs for Optimal Health

Recently there has been a shift from the RDAs which focuses on low standards to ones that focus on optimal levels. These are called Dietary Reference Intakes (DRIs).

Although these new measures have increased the requirements for certain vitamins and minerals, some health experts still believe they fall short.

Ok so what's the final message here?

Well there is definitely scientific evidence that states that going above and beyond the RDAs is needed to reach optimal levels of health.

Optimal levels of health means being far above the base levels associated with nutrient deficiencies.

What this really means is that you need to take important vitamins that exceed the RDAs.




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