Decoding DRIs

In the world of nutrition it can be hard to remember how much of what you need to be eating on a daily basis. Add to that confusing abbreviations and the whole absorption issue and many are left scratching their heads. If you’re one of those people, you’re not alone. It can even be hard for those of us in (or soon to be in) the profession of nutrition to keep track of it all!

Here’s a quick guide to some abbreviations you may see for suggested intakes of nutrients, vitamins, and minerals:

DRI – Dietary Reference Intake. This is based on gender and age group for people living in North America. The following abbreviations all fall under the category of DRIs.

EAR – Estimated Average Requirement. By figuring out the EAR for a nutrient, half of the population will be getting enough of it and half won’t be getting enough. That’s why this is rarely used as a recommendation and is instead used to figure out the RDA.

RDA – Recommended Dietary Allowance. This is the EAR plus 2 standard deviations, which makes it so that 98% of people will be getting enough of the nutrient.

AI – Adequate Intake. This is used as a measure for nutrients when there is no known EAR and is based on known amounts that people can handle of a specific nutrient.

UL – Upper Tolerable Limit. Most people will have adverse affects when consuming a nutrient above this amount. There is an UL set for some vitamins (for example) when a large amount could cause toxicity, but many others have no UL because excess amounts will have no effect.

So let's look at calcium. The recommendation for adults is 1,000 mg/day. That means that your body needs 1,000 mg of calcium each day in order to do important things like rebuild bone which helps prevent osteoporosis. Right? Wrong. The recommendation takes into account a little thing called absorption. Your body does not treat all nutrients equally; some are absorbed better than others. Your body actually only needs 300 mg of calcium each day. But the rate of calcium absorption is around 30% (this is called the bioavailability) so the recommendation accounts for that, saving us all from doing lots and lots of math each time we plan a meal! And what happens to the other 700 mg of calcium that you're consuming each day? In one end, out the other...