News Releases

Tuesday, January 16, 2001

DietPower Wins RDA Race—Again

Popular nutrition software is first to include new vitamin A and mineral allowances

DANBURY, Conn. (January 16, 2001)—DietPower, Inc., today released a version of its personal nutrition and weight-management software incorporating the new recommended allowances for vitamin A, copper, iron, magnesium, and zinc. The release came one week after a government panel announced the changes.

"Once again, we worked nearly round the clock to make this happen," said DietPower founder and president Terry Dunkle. "We believe we're the first consumer software to reflect the changes." Dunkle's company won a similar race last April when the same panel revised the Recommended Dietary Allowances (RDAs) for three other nutrients. In both cases, the changes climaxed more than a decade of new research.

DietPower's Version 2.4 upgrade is the company's fourth release since January 1998, when Dunkle unveiled the first Windows program that can guarantee reaching a goal weight on a target date. The program achieves this feat by monitoring the user's metabolic rate and showing the user how to adjust meals and activities accordingly. Besides calories eaten and burned in exercise, DietPower keeps users aware of their intake of 33 major and minor nutrients. [Click here to learn more about DietPower.]

The new nutrient allowances were announced last Monday [January 9, 2001] by the Food and Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine, an arm of the National Academies, which Congress chartered in 1863 to provide scientific information to the U.S. government.

Of the five nutrients, the most newsworthy is vitamin A. Abundant in organ meats and certain vegetables, the vitamin prevents night blindness, preserves the health of skin and mucous membranes, plays an important role in reproductive and immune functions, and is thought to protect against cancer—especially of the lung.

The news is that one of the principal sources of vitamin A—dark green or orange fruits and vegetables—provides only half as much vitamin A as previously supposed. This means that people who rely on vegetables for vitamin A must take extra pains to make sure they get enough. It also makes animal sources of the vitamin more important.

The Board's new report also revised allowances for four minerals. For most adults, the Board now recommends:

Slightly decreasing vitamin A intake, from 1000 micrograms a day to 900 micrograms if you're male and from 800 micrograms to 700 if you're female.
Cutting copper intake from 2250 micrograms to 900 micrograms per day.
Raising iron intake if you're female and 50 or younger, but lowering it if you're over 50 or male. For women aged 19 to 50 the RDA jumps from 15 milligrams to 18 milligrams per day, while for those over 50 it drops from 10 milligrams to 8 milligrams. The same drop is recommended for men 19 and older.
Lowering manganese intake from 3.5 to 2.3 milligrams per day if you're male or from 3.5 milligrams to 1.8 if you're female. (The manganese allowance is not technically a Recommended Dietary Allowance, or RDA, but a less certain figure called an Adequate Intake. More research is needed to establish an RDA.)
Lowering zinc consumption from 15 to 11 milligrams per day if you're male or from 12 milligrams to 8 if you're female.

In addition, the report set these Tolerable Upper Intake Levels:

For vitamin A, 3000 micrograms per day. Doses above this level can injure the brain and nervous system and cause blurred vision, headaches, hair loss, diarrhea, menstrual problems, joint pain, insomnia, liver damage, abnormal bone growth, and other ailments. It may also increase the risk of birth defects.
For copper, 10,000 micrograms per day. Higher amounts can produce violent vomiting and liver damage. Sources of copper include seafoods (especially oysters), nuts, cocoa powder, legumes, pork and beef liver, kidneys, and dried beans. Overdoses can result from cooking acidic foods in copper-lined pans.
For iron, 45 milligrams per day. A chronic excess can cause liver damage and heart failure, and a short-term megadose may trigger fatal shock. Iron is abundant in liver (especially pork liver), red meats, kidney, leafy green vegetables, dried fruits, egg yolks, dried peas and beans, potatoes, whole-grain and enriched cereals, and blackstrap molasses.
For manganese, 11 milligrams per day. Above this level, the mineral may cause strange symptoms such as involuntary laughing, hand tremors, slurred speech, and "poker face"—an immobile, deadpan expression. Rich sources of manganese include nuts, whole grains, tea, instant coffee, cocoa powder, and some fruits and vegetables.
For zinc, 40 milligrams per day. A chronic oversupply can lead to anemia, depressed immune function, abdominal pain, and fever. Zinc is abundant in meat, liver, poultry, eggs, seafood, and whole grains.

(Requirements for teenagers and pregnant or nursing women differ from those cited above.)

DietPower has won positive reviews (see www.dietpower.com/reviews/) in leading health and fitness magazines and journals. On the Internet, it won a 5 Star rating from the popular news service ZDNet. Reviewers praise the program for its combination of scientific rigor and user friendliness.

DietPower comes in three forms: 1) a personal edition that can handle up to nine users within a household, 2) a large-group edition for health clubs, corporate wellness programs and the like, and 3) a consultant's edition for doctors, nutritionists, sports trainers and other personal advisers. Although designed for Windows, DietPower will also run on a Mac equipped with PC-emulator software such as Virtual PC.

A free 15-day trial of the the latest version of DietPower is available on a CD-ROM or by downloading from www.dietpower.com, where users can also order a $49.99* "unlock code" that makes the program work permanently. For further information, company contacts are at www.dietpower.com/contact_us.php.

DietPower is not sold in stores.

On June 12, 2008, this was lowered to $39.99.

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