In the last few generations the general scientific assessment of our need for vitamins and minerals has changed dramatically. Where there once was consensus that this need was relatively small, today more advanced researchers are of the opinion that considerably more, often times many times larger, amounts are necessary than what was believed only a pair decades ago.
Many places have, for the time being, not held themselves up to date with the most recent research and its consequences. Unfortunately, some groups within health and nutrition administrations have not kept up with the times and their opinions are hopelessly outdated.
In order to understand the situation as it currently stands, it is necessary to have some historical background.
In the first half of the 1900’s, it was seen that there are a number of substances which when lacking cause disease in large population groups. These illnesses include beriberi, pellagra, and scurvy. With this knowledge it was an intelligent step to establish minimum requirements of these substances for large population groups ( garrisons, jails, orphanages, and other places where many individuals lived together under often primitive and austere conditions) so that they would not suffer from the worst results of nutrient deficiency.
The first large official set of such requirements was established in 1943 the United States and is known as RDA (Recommended Dietary Allowances). It has been updated continuously up to the present day (1).
RDA is not just a list with names and numbers. It includes a detailed account of how the requirements were set, the amount of uncertainty that had to be dealt with, what these requirements can be used for, and what they cannot be used for.
It should be pointed out that RDA was formulated with regards to the average, normal, and healthy person and that the amount outlined therein are minimum requirements that the average, healthy person should receive.
It should also be pointed out that people who are not average or who are sick, elderly, under stress, have special inherited needs, high physical activity, or who live in extreme climes can have needs which vary greatly from RDA.
Officials have also explicitly stated that RDA should not be used as a standard for individual dosing, but should be seen as a norm which regards large population groups so that most of the individuals in such groups (but not all!) avoid nutrient deficiency.
It is therefore completely unscientific, grotesque, and almost criminal when RDA is used as a reference to limit patients’ intake of nutrients or is used as a standard for the amount of nutrient any individual should receive.
Nevertheless, this is often how RDA is used in a doctor’s consultation or at the pharmacy where people are advised against using certain vitamins using frightening tales of vitamin poisoning. It is important to know that it is very difficult to receive any form of vitamin poisoning and it can be said with confidence that there are few things as non-toxic as vitamins. Most vitamins are completely harmless, even in very large doses. The few vitamins which can theoretically cause poisoning are only poisonous in very rare situations.
The situation is worsened by the fact that the very people who warn us against large amounts of vitamins are also those who normally dispense medicine.
(1) Recommended Dietary Allowances; 9. ed. 1980; The National Research Council; National Academy of Sciences; Washington D.C.;ISBN 0-309-02941-1; p.10; "RDA should not be used as a justification for reducing habitual intakes of nutrients. In developing RDA, no effort was made to relate them to what, for reasons other than strictly nutritional ones, may be considered desirable intakes."
