How much to consume vitamins and minerals? The National Food Safety Agency (Handles) publishes on April 23 his new references for “cover the nutrient requirement“of each category of the French population… but”without leading to excess“.

At each age its needs

First point to remember: each population has its nutritional references. Needs are obviously not the same for infants, children, adolescents, pregnant women, nursing mothers or the elderly. ANSES therefore invites all healthcare professionals to consult these references, “as part of an individualized preventive dietary follow-up or in the context of therapeutic support“.

70% of French people are deficient in vitamin D

In this new report, ANSES focuses on two vitamins. First of all, vitamin D which has made a lot of talk in recent months in the fight against covid. And for good reason: a vitamin D deficiency can affect the functioning of the immune system. Generalized vitamin D supplementation would therefore constitute a weapon to be added to the arsenal deployed against the disease.

Especially since “in 2019, more than 70% of French adults still had insufficient vitamin D intake, or even a deficiency in 6.5% of cases“reminds ANSES today.

But be careful not to fall into the other extreme: vitamin D supplementation should be supervised, as overdose leads to health risks, including excessive calcium in the blood and kidney failure.

Read also: How confinement has changed our eating habits

Sun and oily fish

The coverage of vitamin D needs can simply be ensured by two behaviors, points out ANSES:

• exposure to the sun for 15 to 20 minutes at the end of the morning or in the afternoon ensures “a sufficient daily intake of vitamin D“;
• the consumption of certain foods: fatty fish (herring, sardines, salmon and mackerel), certain mushrooms (chanterelles, porcini mushrooms and morels), dairy products enriched with vitamin D, egg yolk, dark chocolate, butter or again the margarines.

Vitamin B9 for women

ANSES recalls the importance of vitamin B9, the needs of which remain according to it “a public health issue“. For the health agency, all women of childbearing age and expressing a desire for a child must pay attention to their vitamin B9 intake, and this well before pregnancy.

Why ? Because vitamin B9 deficiency in the early stages of pregnancy puts the fetus at risk for spina bifida, a birth defect of the spinal cord. Ensuring sufficient intake of vitamin B9 before the pregnancy project helps “take into account cases of unplanned pregnancies“, notes ANSES.

In addition to food supplements, vitamin B9 is present in legumes, green leafy vegetables, yeast flakes, wheat germ or egg yolk.