Beverage Institute Grant Supports USDA Nutrient Database Update for
Vitamin D Content

An unrestricted grant from The Beverage Institute For Health & Wellness of The Coca–Cola Company is helping to support the United States Department of Agriculture's (USDA) efforts to reanalyze foods and beverages in the U.S. food supply for vitamin D content. The USDA's action comes in response to public health experts' concerns over research showing inadequate dietary intake of vitamin D among several groups of Americans and mounting evidence supporting the importance of adequate vitamin D in overall health and disease prevention.

A research paper describing the first step in the process, the establishment of analysis methodology, is published as a supplement to the April 2008 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.1

The reanalysis is being conducted by USDA's Nutrient Data Laboratory (NDL), which is responsible for developing the National Nutrient Database for Standard Reference, the USDA's authoritative food composition database. The National Nutrient Database serves as the foundation for most food and nutrition databases used in the US. It is also a primary resource for food policy, research, and nutrition monitoring, including the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), the nation's ongoing nutrition survey.

"Our support of this project is part of our long-standing interest in vitamin D as an important nutrient for health," said Carolyn Moore, Ph.D., Principal Scientist, The Beverage Institute For Health & Wellness, The Coca Cola Company. "Because nutrition research, health assessment surveys and nutrition labeling rely on the National Nutrient Database, it is important that its data is as accurate and up-to-date as possible." Dr. Moore has published research that found inadequate vitamin D intakes among several U.S. populations.2 She also worked on The Coca–Cola Company's successful efforts to petition the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to allow vitamin D to be added to calcium-fortified juice and juice drinks.3

The NDL's updated analysis will provide vitamin D values for a wider range of foods that naturally contain vitamin D, such as finfish and shellfish, as well as vitamin D-fortified foods and beverages including calcium-fortified orange juice, ready-to-eat breakfast cereals, fluid milk, margarines, sliced American cheese and yogurt. For the first time, it will also provide separate measurements of D2 and D3, the two forms of vitamin D found in foods and beverages. The previous analysis covered a limited range of food and beverage products and did not break out vitamin D2 and D3 content.

Both vitamin D2 and vitamin D3 are precursors to 25-hydroxyvitamin D, which is the major circulating form of the vitamin in the blood that reflects overall nutritional status. Vitamin D2 comes from UV irradiation of ergosterol, a vitamin-D2 precursor obtained from yeast, and is found in plants, fungi, mold and lichens. Vitamin D3, or cholecalciferol, is produced through exposure of the skin to sunlight but is also naturally present in cod liver oil and oily fish such as salmon. In a recent study supported in part by The Beverage Institute, researchers from Boston University School of Medicine found that vitamin D2 is equally as effective as vitamin D3 in maintaining circulating blood levels of vitamin D. A few previous studies suggested that D2 was less potent than D3.4

For more information about vitamin D, calcium and bone health, visit: References:
  1. Holden JM, Lemar LE, and Exler J. Vitamin D in foods: Development of the US Department of Agriculture database. Am J Clin Nutr 2008; 87(suppl):1092S – 6S.
  2. Moore CE, Murphy MM, Holick MF. Vitamin D intakes by children and adults in the United States among ethnic groups. J Nutr 2005;135:2478-85.
  3. FDA News. FDA Updates Health Claim for Calcium and Osteoporosis. January 5, 2007.
  4. Holick MF, Biancuzzo RM, Chen TC, et al. Vitamin D2 is as effective as vitamin D3 in maintaining circulating concentrations of 25-hydroxyvitamin D. J Clin Endocrinol Metab 2008;93(3):677-81.