[Nutritional requirements of adults and intakes recommended for the satisfaction of these requirements]

Physicians are increasingly asked by patients or healthy subjects and by responsible people in communities to provide information on food consumption and health and to transmit data on foods that are regarded as suitable. International committees of specialists in FAO and WHO and national committees have examined the results of research on nutritional requirements as well as those of clinical and epidemiological studies on the relationship between food consumption profiles and state of health. They have issued documents in which the recommended intakes of proteins, minerals ans vitamins are presented in relation to age, sex, physiological status and activity. The figures given in these documents are "reference values" and not standards.