The committee's RDA recommendations help consumers, physicians, and researchers decide on healthy levels of daily intake of various nutrients. The last RDA guidelines were published in 1989-1990.
Most earlier recommendations remain unchanged.
The DRI's latest effort focuses on guidelines regarding the B vitamins folic acid, B6, B12, niacin, and choline. The experts recommend that at-risk women consume at least 400 micrograms of folic acid per day. Grain products such as breads, cereals, and pastas, are already enriched with folic acid, supplying consumers with generous amounts of the nutrient. But the DRI researchers suggest that women who believe they may conceive may want to take folic acid supplements as well, to ensure that their RDA requirements are being fully met. The expert's DRI report set upper limits for the consumption of other B vitamins as well.