What is the mineral availability? If you don't know yet, only a part of the total amount of minerals present in food can be available to the body, mainly because the minerals are bound to other compounds in the food that can limit their absorption. In low income countries, low bioavailability can be one of the main contributors to the poor mineral levels, even if the total number of calories is fine. This can happen to people subsisting on monotonous, plant based diets, as plants tend to have lower bioavailability, and can be also rich in negatively charged compounds (phytates, polyphenols, oxalates, dietary fiber) which can bind cations (Ca Fe Zn) getting the bioavailability even lower.
Dietary minerals are present in all foods, excepting vegetable oils and table sugar. The most relevant to human health are sodium, potassium, calcium, iron and iodine.
In many countries, food labels provide information about how much a portion of that food can contribute towards the daily requirements of the specific nutrient. For every nutrient there is a set value called recommended dietary allowance RDA. For example vitamin C RDA is 60 milligrams per day, while Calcium is 1000 milligrams per day.
RDA is just a one of the many references grouped into the dietary references intake (US, Canada) or dietary references values (UK, EU). The dietary references values include also estimated average requirements (EAR), RDA, adequate intake (AI) and tolerance upper intake level (UL). EAR - estimated average intake - is the level of intake at which the requirements of half of the healthy people is met. RDA - level of intake sufficient to meet the requirements of nearly all the healthy people. AI- it is used when the RDA cannot be defined. UL - highest level of daily intake of a nutrient that is safe for the human body.
All these are used to assess and plan the diet of every individual, and they started to be used during the second world war, to keep the soldiers healthy. The Dietary reference values are based on the scientifically proven relationships between nutrient intakes and indicators of efficacy``, in order to prevent chronic diseases in apparently healthy populations.
There are situations when individuals need extra vitamins and minerals:
- newborns - need vitamin K (oral, shortly after birth and more if breastfed). They also need vitamin D until age of 4, but if they are bottle fed, they will get that from formula.
- vitamin D is also recommended for males older than 70 and women older than 50, because they rarely go outside, also for people covering all their skin, and for people that are dark-skinned
- elderly people need extra Calcium and B12
- vegans need B12 and Iron
- pregnant women need extra Iron, Calcium and Folate.
Anything in excess can be harmful, including vitamins and minerals. Supplementation of vitamin A (retinol, beta carotene) and vitamin E increases mortality by 5%.
And with this, I end today's post. Next one will be about the role of water in malnutrition.
Yours truly,
George
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