How do daily requirements of nutrients express?
The daily nutritional requirements are known for each individual substance and is expressed as the LARN and the RDA.
LARN is an acronym that means “Taking Reference Levels of Nutrients and Energy for the Italian population.” Therefore, they are the recommendations made by a group of Italian experts on the basis of recent scientific literature on the needs, consumption and the relationship between nutrition and health.
The values in the tables for each nutrient (proteins, lipids, carbohydrates, vitamins and minerals) do not define the optimal amount but indicate the amount of “safety” (a reference, of course) for each nutrient, valid for the entire population.
LARN mainly designed to meet three objectives:
1 . Protect the entire population from the risk of nutritional deficiencies;
2 . Provide useful information to assess the nutritional adequacy of the diet of the population average than those proposed;
3 . Plan the policy of the national food supply.
The recommendations contained in the LARN are not addressed to the sick, but in the healthy population.
In Italy are updated approximately every 10 years and the latest was in 1996. In December 2012, the SINU (Italian Society of Human Nutrition) presented a revision of LARN but has not yet been made official.
It should be emphasized that in developing these recommendations, it was necessary to identify the different age groups and the corresponding weights as examples. So the LARN provide classifications based on gender, age and weight.
RDA (Recommended Daily Allowance) is an acronym that means “recommended daily intake”. Therefore, This indicates the recommended amount of nutrients that a person should take every day.
Unlike the LARN, the RDA does not distinguish the individual on the basis of age, sex or weight for which the reference values are aimed at a healthy human adult.
The values are recommended by the Ministry of Health and for all dietary supplements is mandatory bring on the label.
Healthy and balanced diet should provide the body with all the elements necessary for its operation, in terms of energy intake and nutrients.
Dietary supplements come in handy when what they eat is not able to meet our needs, which can not cover the minimum needs of specific nutrients needed by the body to function normally.
