As we have seen, the risk assessment methodologies that seem most likely to be used to calculate the upper safe levels for nutrients contain some serious flaws. However, what is not commonly understood is that these levels, once calculated via the nutrient group approach outlined above, will then be ‘risk managed’ downwards even further by subtracting from them the highest amounts - as determined from national dietary surveys - that we are supposedly already getting in our diets from conventional foods, beverages and drinking water. The Codex Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements and the European Union’s Food Supplements Directive, for example, both require that this procedure should be utilised when setting the maximum permitted levels in supplements.

To illustrate this, if the upper safe level for vitamin B6 is calculated to be 10mg, as recommended by the UK’s Expert Group on Vitamins and Minerals, and the average daily intake of vitamin B6 from food is calculated to be 2.9mg, as was stated to be the case for men in the UK’s National Diet & Nutrition Survey in 2003, then the ‘maximum permitted level’ of vitamin B6 in supplements could potentially be set by regulators at a mere 7.1mg.

The first organization in the world to carry out vitamin and mineral risk assessment and management studies according to these procedures was the German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment (BfR). The Institute’s studies were led by a team of scientists including Dr. Rolf Grossklaus, who, as well as being the Institute's Director, is also the Chairman of the Codex Committee on Nutrition and Foods for Special Dietary Uses (CCNFSDU). (The CCNFSDU was the Codex committee that drafted the Guidelines for Vitamin and Mineral Food Supplements ). Published in January 2005, the BfR recommendations for the maximum levels in vitamin and mineral supplements are as follows: