Dietary Reference Intake Totally Explained

Everything about Usrda totally explained

The Dietary Reference Intake (or DRI) is a system of nutrition recommendations from the Institute of Medicine (IOM) of the US National Academy of Sciences. The DRI system is used by both the United States and Canada and is intended for the general public and health professionals. Applications include:

Composition of diets for schools, prisons, hospitals or nursing homes
Industries developing new food stuffs
Healthcare policy makers and public health officials

The DRI was introduced in 1997 in order to broaden the existing guidelines known as Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs). The DRI values are not currently used in nutrition labeling, where the older Reference Daily Intakes are still used.

History

The Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) was developed during World War II by Lydia J. Roberts, Hazel Stiebeling and Helen S. Mitchell, all part of a committee established by the United States National Academy of Sciences in order to investigate issues of nutrition that might "affect national defense" (Nestle, 35). The committee was renamed the Food and Nutrition Board in 1941, after which they began to deliberate on a set of recommendations of a standard daily allowance for each type of nutrient. The standards would be used for nutrition recommendations for the armed forces, for civilians, and for overseas population who might need food relief. Roberts, Stiebeling, and Mitchell surveyed all available data, created a tentative set of allowances for "energy and eight nutrients", and submitted them to experts for review (Nestle, 35). The final set of guidelines, called RDAs for Recommended Dietary Allowances, were accepted in 1941. The allowances were meant to provide superior nutrition for civilians and military personnel, so they included a "margin of safety." Because of food rationing during the war, the food guides created by government agencies to direct citizens' nutritional intake also took food availability into account.
The Food and Nutrition Board subsequently revised the RDAs every five to ten years. In the early 1950s, United States Department of Agriculture nutritionists made a new set of guidelines that also included the number of servings of each food group in order to make it easier for people to receive their RDAs of each nutrient.

Current recommendations

The current Dietary Reference Intake recommendation is composed of:

Estimated Average Requirements (EAR), expected to satisfy the needs of 50% of the people in that age group.

Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDA), the daily dietary intake level of a nutrient considered sufficient to meet the requirements of nearly all (97–98%) healthy individuals in each life-stage and gender group.

Adequate Intake (AI), where no RDA has been established, but the amount established is somewhat less firmly believed to be adequate for everyone in the demographic group.

Tolerable upper intake levels (UL), to caution against excessive intake of nutrients (like vitamin D) that can be harmful in large amounts. The RDA is used to determine the Recommended Daily Value (RDV) which is printed on food labels in the U.S. and Canada.

Vitamins and minerals

EARs, RDA/AIs and ULs for a 25-year old male are shown below. EARs shown as "NE" have not yet been established or not yet evaluated. ULs shown as "ND" couldn't be determined, and it's recommended that intake from these nutrients be from food only, to prevent adverse effects. Amounts and "ND" status for other age and gender groups, pregnant women, lactating women, and breastfeeding infants are different.

Nutrient	EAR	RDA/AI	UL	Unit
Vitamin A	2083	3000	10000	IU
Vitamin C	75	90	2000	mg
Vitamin D	NE	200	2000	IU
Vitamin K	NE	120	ND	µg
Vitamin B₆	1.1	1.3	100	mg
α-tocopherol (E)	12	15	1000	IU
Biotin	NE	30	ND	µg
Boron	NE	-	20	mg
Calcium	NE	1000	2500	mg
Chloride	NE	2300	3600	mg
Chromium	NE	35	ND	µg
Choline	NE	550	3500	mg
Copper	700	900	10000	µg
Cyanocobalamin (B₁₂)	2.0	2.4	ND	µg
Fluoride	NE	4	10	mg
Folate (B₉)	320	400	1000	µg
Iodine	95	150	1100	µg
Iron	6	8	45	mg
Magnesium	330	420	350^a	mg
Manganese	NE	2.3	11	mg
Molybdenum	34	45	2000	µg
Niacin (B₃)	12	16	35	mg
Nickel	NE	-	1.0	mg
Pantothenic acid (B₅)	NE	5	ND	mg
Phosphorus	580	700	4000	mg
Potassium	NE	4700	ND	mg
Thiamin (B₁)	1.0	1.2	ND	mg
Riboflavin (B₂)	1.1	1.3	ND	mg
Selenium	45	55	400	µg
Sodium	NE	1500	2300	mg
Sulfate	NE	-	ND	-
Zinc	9.4	11	40	mg

^a From pill only, not including food and water intake. EAR: Estimated Average Requirements; RDA: Recommended Dietary Allowances; AI: Adequate Intake; UL: Tolerable upper intake levels. It is also recommended that the following substances not be added to food or dietary supplements. Research has been conducted into adverse effects, but wasn't conclusive in many cases:

Substance	RDA/AI	UL	units per day
Arsenic	-	ND	-
Silicon	-	ND	-
Vanadium	-	1.8	mg

Macronutrients

RDA/AI is shown below for males aged 19-30 years.

Water^b	3.7 L/day
Carbohydrates	130 g/day
Protein^c	56 g/day
Fiber	38 g/day
Fat	20–35% of calories
Linoleic acid, an omega-6 fatty acid (polyunsaturated)	17 g/day
alpha-Linolenic acid, an omega-3 fatty acid (polyunsaturated)	1.6 g/day
Cholesterol	As low as possible
Trans fatty acids	As low as possible
Saturated fatty acids	As low as possible
Added sugar	No more than 25% of calories

� ^bIncludes water from food, beverages, and drinking water.

^cBased on 0.8 g/kg of body weight

Further Information

Get more info on 'Usrda'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://dietary_reference_intake.totallyexplained.com">Dietary Reference Intake Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.