Dietary intake levels

The practical implications of consuming specific protein sources at customary dietary intake levels are briefly discussed. 

Galal-Gorchev, H. (1993). Dietary intake, levels in food and estimated intake of lead, cadmium, and mercury. Food Addit. Contam., 10, 1, 115-128. 

In order to prevent indiscriminate use, regulations have been developed by many countries limiting the types, uses, and amounts of food colors permitted in foods (142,151). Since different countries allow the use of specific food colors, it is possible that foodstuffs may be imported into a country that forbids the coloring agent present in the product. Therefore, methods capable of identifying and quantifying several colors simultaneously are desired in order to verify compliance to regulations. Information on the levels of these compounds in foods is also important to assess where the dietary intake levels stand compared to the ADIs (131,152,153). 

Lycopene derived from a fungal biomass of Blakeslea trispos, suspended in sunflower oil at a concentration of 20% w/w, was tested for subchronic toxicity at concentrations of 0%, 0.25%, 0.50%, and 1.0% in rats for 90 days (Jonker et al., 2003). No evidence of toxicity of lycopene at dietary intake levels up to 1.0% was observed in this study. The authors suggest the noobserved-effect level (NOEL) for this lycopene to be 1.0% in the diet, the highest dietary concentration tested. McClain and Bausch (2003) published... 

Accordingly, liver weights were not significantly affected (4, 16, 18, 19). As discussed before, in the 13-week sub-chronic toxicity study, increased liver weights were found only at dietary intake levels of 15% Clarinol G-80, and were mostly reversed after CLA intake was stopped (5). Other rat studies have tested levels of CLA in the range of 0.25-5% in the diet only (4,16,18-20). 

Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA). Daily dietary intake level of a nutrient considered sufficient by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academies to meet the requirements of nearly all (97-98%) healthy individuals in each life-stage and gender group. 

The trend in Pb content of the U.S. diet has been downward over the years, for reasons noted earlier. As a percentage of the daily U.S. FDA PTTI, daily U.S. intakes of Pb are in the range of 1—5% and 6—23%. The uppermost value in the upper range indicated that almost one-quarter of the PTTI is achieved through the actual dietary intake levels. 

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