Why do some daily supplements give you 1000+% of the RDI for some vitamins and mineral and not as much of others?

Question

Why do some daily supplements give you 1000+% of the RDI for some vitamins and mineral and not as much of others?

In: 13

Answer 1

There is no consensus on the optimal intake of each vitamin/mineral. Some in the medical community have speculated that the current RDIs may only represent the minimum amount needed to prevent disease, whereas the *optimal* amount could be much higher.

On the other hand, some vitamins and minerals are very easy to obtain from food and do in fact have established upper limits, so including them in a multivitamin could lead to an overdose.

Others have mentioned water-soluble versus fat-soluble, which is also irrelevant.