TABLE 4.

Traditional and chronic disease endpoints for DRIs¹

Issue	Eligibility for consideration	Focus	Characteristics	Expression of risk
Traditional endpoints	Food substances that are essential or conditionally essential or that are components of energy nutrients (e.g., fats, proteins, and carbohydrates).	Nutrient requirements	Adequate intakes are essential for preventing and treating deficiency diseases.	Average inflection point between adequate and inadequate intakes (EAR) of a group and its associated population variance (RDA).
		Nutrient toxicities	Intakes at some level above adequate intakes may pose the risk of adverse health effects.	Highest intake of a group that is unlikely to pose a risk of adverse effects and above which the risk of adverse effects increases (UL).
Chronic-disease endpoints	Naturally occurring food substances, including nutrients, for which changes in intake have been demonstrated to have a causal relationship to the risk of one or more chronic diseases.	↑Intakes of “beneficial” substances	With ↑ intakes, the relative risk ↓ compared with baseline intakes.	Relative risk (ratio of the probability of an event occurring in a group with higher intakes to the probability of an event in a comparison group with lower intakes).
		↓Intakes of “harmful” substances	With ↓ intakes, the relative risk ↓ compared with baseline intakes.	Relative risk (ratio of the probability of an event occurring in a group with lower intakes to the probability of an event in a comparison group with higher intakes).

¹DRI, Dietary Reference Intake; EAR, Estimated Average Requirement; RDA, Recommended Dietary Allowance; UL, Tolerable Upper Intake Level; ↑, increased or increases; ↓, decreased or decreases.