Getting the right amount of vitamins is vital to ensuring good nutrition. Taking vitamins daily helps ensure your body has everything it needs to function. However, taking all the essential vitamins is not enough. You need to know how much of what vitamin your body needs to stay fit. The Recommended Nutrient Intake, or RNI, and Recommended Dietary Allowance, RDA, are sets of reference values for vitamins and nutrients meant to serve as a guide for adequate intake amounts, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies explains.
RNI, RDA and DRI
RDA and RNI were the daily nutrition references used in the United States of America and Canada respectively, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academies notes. RDA and RNI were meant to be scientifically based guides to good nutrition to be used in developing food guidelines in both the US and Canada. RDA and RNI have nutrient reference values specific to age, gender and life stage. Both RDA and RNI have been subsequently replaced with the Dietary Reference Intakes, or DRIs in the mid-1990s. Despite being replaced with DRIs, RNI is still used as a nutrition guide today.
Vitamins A and D
The RNI for fat-soluble vitamins such as vitamins A and D vary according to age and gender. Infants and children up to 3 years of age need between about 400 mcg of vitamin A daily, MayoClinic.com says. Children ages 4 to 6 years of age require about 500 mcg of vitamin A daily. Adult and teenaged males need about 1,000 mcg of vitamin A per day, while females within the same age range need only 800 mcg of vitamin A daily. The RNI for vitamin D for infants to adults aged 50 is 5 mcg/day, the World Food Programme notes. The RNI changes increases to 10 mcg of vitamin D daily.
Vitamin C
Children between 1 to 3 years of age need 15 mg of vitamin C everyday, the University of Maryland Medical Center says. Those between the ages of 4 and 8 need 25 mg of vitamin C daily. Adolescents between the ages of 14 and 18 need 75 mg each day. Adults 19 years of age and above need 90 mg of vitamin C per day. This varies slightly from the RNI of the same age groups that only ranged from 25 mg to 45 mg each day, the World Food Programme says.
B-Vitamins
Thiamine has an RNI of 0.2 mg to 0.3 mg for infants below a year old, the World Food Programme explains. This amount increases to 1.2 mg for males between the ages of 10 and 18. Vitamin B6 has an RNI of 0.1 mg to 0.3 mg for infants below a year. This range increases to 1.3 mg to 1.7 mg daily for adult males, and 1.2 mg to 1.5 mg for adult females. The RNI for folate is about 80 mcg/day for infants. Children need about 160 mcg to 300 mcg of folate daily between the ages of 1 to 9. Adults need 400 mcg of folate daily. Infants have a vitamin B12 RNI of 0.4 mcg to 0.5 mcg while under a year old. Children need between 0.9 mcg to 1.8 mcg of vitamin B12 daily between the ages of 1 and 9. Adults need 2.4 mcg of vitamin B12 daily.
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