Introduction of Human Vitamins and Minerals

Before I proceed, please allow me to say some words to all of you, my readers. 

At first, I thought the introduction of this joint report of FAO/WHO is not really important. However, when I finished the last chapter (chapter 17) I scrolled to the top and read again the Introduction. I realized this is a must read to the readers because this was how, and why the FAO/WHO came up to organize this expert consultation in making their reports. 

This book is an eye opener to those, like me, who wants to know the real functions of vitamins and minerals. Like I said in my previous post, this is the answer to my questions about vitamins and minerals, and now I can say, I finally found it. I need to read this over and over again, because 17 chapters of the book is not that easy to remember everything in one to three readings. 

I apologize for my early posts because it was not really well organized. I will post first this Introduction of Chapter 1, then I will go back and update my other posts for all my readers to have quick and easy reading. I know that there is always not much time for every visitor to read and find the contents of any site, therefore, I tried my best to make it easy for everybody to see the useful information by highlighting the important topics, to save time for the readers. 

Thank you all for your visit...please continue reading.

Reference from the joint report of FAO/WHO expert consultation on Human Vitamins and Minerals verbatim.

A Joint Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations/World Food Organization of the United Nations (FAO/WHO) expert consultation on human vitamin and mineral requirements was held in the FAO Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, Bangkok, Thailand, from 21 to 30 September 1998.

The purpose of the consultation was to complement the information, which had been provided through previous consultations for different nutrients, in order to provide current knowledge on all essential nutrients as the first step towards the production of a new edition of the manual on human nutritional requirements. 

Background 

The Secretariat of the FAO and WHO organized the joint FAO/WHO expert consultation on human vitamin and mineral requirements to review the FAO/WHO micronutrient requirements and to develop recommended nutrient intakes. The report of the Expert Consultation (this report) is being published as a technical document, and this will later serve as the basis for developing a revised edition of the FAO/WHO handbook of human nutrition.

Consultations such as this one are part of a continuing commitment by both FAO and WHO to promote a reliable, nutritious, and safe food supply and to provide scientifically sound nutritional advice to Member Nations. This commitment was recently reaffirmed by the World Food Summit in November 1996 in Rome.

Written documents providing the criteria that were used in the past to develop the FAO/WHO RNIs were made available to the experts. These documents included the 1974 FAO/WHO handbook on human nutritional requirements, the 1988 FAO/WHO expertconsultation report on the requirements for vitamin A, iron, folate, and vitamin B12, and the 1996 WHO/FAO/IAEA report on trace elements in human nutrition and health.

For the purpose of preparation of the background papers, the following working definition of a recommended nutrient intake (RNI) was used. The RNI is the intake level sufficient to meet the daily nutrient requirements of most individuals in a specific life-stage and gender group and is based on an estimated average nutrient requirement (EAR) plus two standard deviations above the mean: RNI = EAR + 2SDEAR.

To be continued in my next post...