Limits for vitamins and minerals in food supplements

There are various specifications for quantities of vitamins and minerals, e.g. on food supplements or in the literature. Below is some information to clarify the situation.
Here is a table for a quick overview, but first an explanation of the column headings.

NRV

NRV is the abbreviation for nutrient reference value, more precisely: "Nutritional Reference Values" or "Reference Values for Nutrient Intake". Although this value is obviously based on the consumption recommendations for nutrient intake issued by European institutes such as the DGE, it is expressly not intended to be a recommendation, as the legislator emphasises, but merely a reference value without any scientific evaluation.
In this respect, it is also wrong or demonstrates a lack of expertise when suppliers of food supplements translate the NRV value, which must be stated on the labels, as "recommendations for daily intake". Unfortunately, this value is often really just a value without any meaning, as it was set a long time ago, i.e. in 2011, and has not been revised since. As science is constantly evolving, some of the figures are already absurdly out of date. In the case of vitamin D, for example, it is now clear that the recommendation at the time was far too low. Today it is recommended to take 20 µg of vitamin D daily, whereas in 2011 it was still thought that 5 µg was sufficient. A dietary supplement containing 20 µg of vitamin D must therefore now be labelled "400% NRV", which the layman thinks is completely overdosed, but in fact it contains just the absolutely necessary amount per day.

DACH

DACH stands for Germany (D) Austria (Austria) Switzerland (CH).
The German Nutrition Society (DGE) used to be responsible for the recommendations for nutrient intake. Each German-speaking country did its own thing in this area. At some point a few years ago, it was realised that this was pointless and the recommendations were merged. Since then, Germany, Austria and Switzerland have jointly decided what they recommend to their citizens and healthcare professionals, which is known as the DACH recommendations. It is important to know that the DACH recommendations are aimed exclusively at healthy people. They are not relevant for people such as the chronically ill, who often have completely different needs.

Upper Limit

The UL is a value that refers to the harmless long-term daily intake over months or years for healthy people. If a therapist prescribes a significantly higher amount for his patient for a short period of time, there is certainly a reason for this, especially as this is a dose for sick people and not for healthy people, which is only taken over a foreseeable period of time. However, the upper limit should not be exceeded in the long term and without special cause.
The values published by the EFSA (European Food Safety Authority) for the "Tolerable Upper Limit" (UL) are most suitable as a guide to how much minerals and vitamins can be taken daily without harming the body. The basic work on this is actually"TOLERABLE UPPER INTAKE LEVELS FOR VITAMINS AND MINERALS" from 2006, but as this comprises almost 500 pages and is almost 20 years old, we consider"Overview on Tolerable Upper Intake Levels as derived by the Scientific Committee on Food (SCF) and the EFSA Panel on Dietetic Products, Nutrition and Allergies (NDA)" from June 2024 with 8 pages to be much more suitable - despite the creepily long title...

Maximum amounts Switzerland per daily intake

As far as upper limits or nutritional recommendations are concerned, Switzerland has deviated greatly from the rest of the EU since 2020 with its "Ordinance of the FDHA on Food Supplements".
As a nutritionist, you don't necessarily have to understand a lot of things there. For example, why Swiss citizens are only allowed to take 5.3 mg of zinc per daily dose, while in the rest of the EU it is much more, which doesn't really seem problematic with an upper limit of 25 mg.
But no matter what you think of the VNem or not, as an online distributor we have to adhere to it in any case. This means that we are not allowed to send any food supplements to Switzerland that exceed the required maximum quantities with even one substance.

N/A

Some columns contain the information n.a. or no information. This may be because a substance is completely harmless or can be consumed in very large quantities. But it may also be because there is simply no scientific data available. This is not always clearly described in the legal regulations.
We therefore recommend using existing values as a guide in this case. If, for example, the European upper limit only states an N/A, you can use the Swiss values as a guide or vice versa.

The following graphic from the Swiss Federal Food Safety Authority is intended to illustrate how the recommendations and upper limits should be categorised:

Upper Limit und Ernährungsbedarf

Brief explanation:

BA = the range of normal nutrition. This is often rather unhealthy (red area), a small proportion of people, according to this graphic approx. 20 %, manage to eat a healthy diet
R = the range in which food supplements can be useful and healthy.
About UL: Only a short-term excess may be justifiable, e.g. to compensate for tangible deficiencies. In the long term, however, this range should not be exceeded.

Tabular overview of limit values for vitamins and minerals in food supplements

Vitamin	^NRV1	DACH (m/f 25-51 years⁾²	Upper ^limit3	Maximum amounts Switzerland per daily intake according to VNemas of 1.2.2024
Vitamin A	800 µg RE5^,6	1000 µg / 800 µg	3000 µg	1360 µg (in the form of beta-carotene max. 8.2 mg⁾⁸
Vitamin D	5 µg	20 µg	100 µg	70 µg
Vitamin E	12 mg ^α-TE5	14 mg / 12 mg	300 mg	205 mg
Vitamin K	75 µg	70 µg / 60 µg	n.a.	225 µg
Vitamin C	80 mg	100 mg	n.a.	750 mg
thiamine	1.1 mg	1.2 mg / 1 mg	n.a.	free / no maximum quantity
Riboflavin	1.4 mg	1.4 mg / 1.2 mg	n.a.	free / no maximum quantity
^Niacin7	16 mg ^NE5	16 mg / 13 mg	900 mg (max 10 mg nicotinic acid)	600 mg, of which max. 10 mg as Nicotinic acid and inositol hexanicotinate (sum)
Vitamin B6	1.4 mg	1.5 mg / 1.2 mg	12 mg	15 mg
Folic acid	200 µg	400 µg	1000 µg	750 µg
Vitamin B12	2.5 µg	3 µg	n.a.	free / no maximum quantity
Biotin	50 µg	30 µg / 60 µg	n.a.	free / no maximum quantity
Pantothenic acid	6 mg	6 mg	safe	free / no maximum quantity

Mineral substance	^NRV1	DACH (m/f 25-51 years⁾²	Upper ^limit3	Maximum amounts Switzerland per daily intake according to VNemas of 1.2.2024
Potassium	2000 mg	2000 mg	n.a.	2250 mg
chlorine	800 mg	830 mg	n.a.	only as an accompaniment
calcium	800 mg	1000 mg	2500 mg	750 mg
phosphorus	700 mg	700 mg	n.a.	only as a supplement
magnesium	375 mg	350 mg / 300 mg	250 mg	375 mg
Iron	14 mg	10 mg / 15 mg	n.a.	21 mg
Zinc	10 mg	10 mg	25 mg	5.3 mg
Copper	1 mg	1 mg / 1.5 mg	5 mg	1.6 mg
Manganese	2 mg	2 mg / 5 mg	n.a.	3 mg
fluorine	3.5 mg	3.8 mg / 3.1 mg	7 mg	n.a.
Selenium	55 µg	10-70 µg	255 µg	165 µg
chromium	40 µg	30 µg / 100 µg	n.a.	188 mg
Molybdenum	50 µg	50 µg / 100 µg	600 µg	300 µg
iodine	150 µg	200 µg	600 µg	200 µg

Sources:

¹ NRV (nutrient reference value): Food Information Regulation LMIV (REGULATION (EU) No. 1169/2011 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL) - reference value for the information on the packaging / can, not identical to the "daily requirement" according to the DGE!

²German Society for Nutrition, Austrian Society for Nutrition, Swiss Society for Nutrition Research, Swiss Association for Nutrition (ed.): Referenzwerte für die Nährstoffzufuhr. Bonn, 2nd edition, 1st edition (2015) - Medically and scientifically proven daily requirement!

³ EFSA (European Food Safety Authority). Tolerable upper intake levels for vitamins and minerals. European Food Safety Authority, Parma, Italy. 2006 - n.a. = no information due to lack of scientific basis; safe = no information, as not toxic even in large quantities - scientifically proven value, should be adhered to, possibly basis for later legal EU-wide maximum quantity limits!

⁵Unit specification according to COMMISSION REGULATION (EC) No. 1170/2009 of 30 November 2009. The specification of the vitamin E content (α-TE = total alpha-tocopherol equivalents) refers to the effect of the various forms of vitamin E. 1 mg aTE corresponds to: 1 mg alpha-tocopherol, 2 mg beta-tocopherol, 4 mg gamma-tocopherol, 100 mg delta-tocopherol, 3.3 mg alpha-tocotrienol, 6.6 mg beta-tocotrienol, 13.2 mg gamma-tocotrienol

⁶ Some carotenoids are converted to vitamin A in the body and must be included in the table, converted to RE = retinol equivalent. 6 mg beta-carotene or 12 mg other carotenoids (lycopene, lutein, zeaxanthin) correspond to 1 mg vitamin A. Beta-carotene plays no role with regard to a toxic increase in vitamin A intake, but a high intake harbours other health risks. For this reason, food supplements with >= 2 mg beta-carotene must bear the following warning: beta-carotene should not be taken over a longer period of time by heavy smokers (>20 cigarettes/day) (source).

⁷Nicotinic acid + nicotinamide are toxicologically different, therefore UL nicotinic acid 10 mg, UL nicotinamide 900 mg. BfR recommends using only nicotinamide!

⁸Vitamin A can easily be overdosed. This is why there are few pure vitamin A supplements in Germany, mostly beta-carotene is added, from which the body can produce vitamin A without the risk of overdosing. This is probably also the reason why Switzerland does not authorise pure vitamin A in food supplements at all!