% of Daily Value in supplements (pill, diet, magnesium, calcium)

[Melanie Jones11]

Hi Everyone!

Why do many dietary supplements have more than 100% daily value (DV) of a certain ingredient? For instance, I bought a calcium-magnesium supplement which contains 250% DV magnesium.

Why do they have so much of the ingredient? The supplement also contains 1000% DV of calcium. 10 times the daily value!

Why so much?

Thanks.

[AnonChick]

Your body doesn't absorb 100% of those pills; it eliminates some of them out in the toilet, and even in sweat. Also the percentage is not the maximum that you're allowed to have. It's the recommended amount that healthy people of perfect height, size, weight, bone structure, and age should have.

There's a range of "how much should people get." It depends on the person. Those numbers on the bottle account only for the average, in a perfect environment.

[nhdriver]

You're lucky if you absorb in 1% of supplements according to some herbologist (hence the name supplements).

But the DV used to be referred to as the minimum daily value. Not to say go overboard on taking certain supplements as it can be fatal if not make you sick like iron and Vitamin A. I can say though I've done mega dose of Vitamin C and had no problem. That's another topic but when I start to have cold symptoms I'll bombard the body with 5,000mg of C a day. Normally I take 1,000-2,000mg.