It’s very easy to take too many vitamins, because so many food products like cereal and milk are fortified with them, so when you have a vitamin pill, you could easily go over the Upper Tolerable Limit. Since there’s no evidence vitamin pills and supplements do good, and there is evidence that they do harm or are ineffective, why take them?
Recommended Daily Allowance & Upper Limits for Vitamins and Minerals
The Institute of Medicine has determined upper limits for 24 nutrients. Here is a chart comparing the RDA and UL for all of them. This table only applies to adults age 19 or older. It also does not apply to women who are pregnant or breastfeeding. (Source: September 2012 ConsumerReports p 21 and Institute of Medicine).
|
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
|
|
|
|
Chloride
|
|
3,600 mg/day
|
|
Choline
(Vitamin B complex) |
|
3,500 mg/day
|
|
Copper
|
900 micrograms/day |
10,000 micrograms/day
|
|
Fluoride
|
|
10 mg/day
|
|
Folic Acid (Folate)
|
400 micrograms/day |
1,000 micrograms/day
|
|
Iodine
|
150 micrograms/day |
1,100 micrograms/day
|
|
Iron
|
|
45 mg/day
|
|
Magnesium
|
|
350 mg/day |
|
Manganese
|
|
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
|
|
2,300 mg/day
|
|
Vanadium
|
Not determined |
1.8 mg/day
|
|
Vitamin A
|
|
10,000 IU/day
|
|
Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
|
|
35 mg/day |
|
Vitamin B6
|
|
100 mg/day
|
|
Vitamin C
|
|
2,000 mg/day
|
|
Vitamin D (Calciferol)
|
|
100 micrograms/day (4,000 IU) |
|
Vitamin E
(alpha-tocopherol) |
22.4 IU/day |
1,500 IU/day
|
|
Zinc
|
|
40 mg/day
|
We have worked long and hard on a database that makes it possible for people to avoid taking vitamin pills. Feel free to link or promote. We think it is a far healthier option to pills http://www.pillsorfood.com
I chose Vitamin A and was shocked that the choices of food to replace this vitamin pill were Oscar Mayer, liver cheese, pork fat wrapped, fruit flavored drink — McDonalds products, candies — huh? Are you sponsors processed food companies? Eating sausages and luncheon meats, snacks, fast foods, etc., is far more harmful than taking a vitamin A pill!
What you’re doing has already been done at nutritiondata.com where similar choices came up to your site, but I can then select from “vegetables and vegetable products” for a healthy choice (from http://nutritiondata.self.com/foods-000098000000000000000-w.html). If you behind-the-scenes make the vegetables and fruits choice to push vegetable options to the top of your list when they provide enough of a nutrient, that would help people make better choices, especially for vitamin A, which can be toxic in high amounts — which you also ought to mention! Nobody needs to eat braised Moose liver to get enough vitamin A, vegetables have plenty enough in them.
Your site is also difficult to use — you ask people to convert g to mg, mg to IU, etc. In all cases, the user should be able to just click on the daily amount in the box that applies to them (i.e. female 19-50) and not have to enter the amount unless they want more or less than what their daily requirement.