Products purchased by the Environmental Working Group. General Mills; Cheerios cereal was bought in Washington, DC in April 2014. Post C is for Cereal and Kellogg's Rice Krispies were bought online, as cereal boxes. While the original purchase date for these two products is not available, the dates stamped on the box indicate that Post C for Cereal is a current formulation (expiration date Jan. 22, 2014) and Kellogg's Rice Krispies is a formulation from the 1990s (expiration date Feb. 5, 2001). (Photo: None Environmental Working Group) 
 
 Young children who dig into a bowl of fortified breakfast cereal may be getting too much of a good thing. 
 
 A new report says that "millions of children are ingesting potentially unhealthy amounts" of vitamin A, zinc and niacin, with fortified breakfast cereals the leading source of the excessive intake because all three nutrients are added in amounts calculated for adults. 
 
 Outdated nutritional labeling rules and misleading marketing by food manufacturers who use high fortification levels to make their products appear more nutritious fuel this potential risk, according to the report by the Environmental Working Group (EWG), a Washington, D.C.-based health research and advocacy organization. 
 
 Although the Food and Drug Administration is currently updating nutrition facts labels that appear on most food packages, none of its proposed changes address the issue of over-consumption of fortified micronutrients, or that the recommended percent daily values for nutrition content that appear on the labels are based on adults,, says Renée Sharp, EWG's director of research. 
 
 Only "a tiny, tiny percentage" of cereal packages carry nutrition labels that list age-specific daily values, Sharp says. "That's misleading to parents and is contributing to the problem." 
 
 The daily values for most vitamins and minerals that appear on nutrition facts labels were set by the FDA in 1968 and haven't updated, she says, making them "wildly out-of-sync" with currently recommended levels deemed safe by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. 
 
 Getting adequate amounts of all three nutrients is needed to maintain health and prevent disease, but the report says that routinely ingesting too much vitamin A can, over time, lead to health issues such as liver damage and skeletal abnormalities. . High zinc intakes can impair copper absorption and negatively affect red and white blood cells and immune function, and consuming too much niacin can cause short-term symptoms such as rash, nausea and vomiting, the report says. 
 
 When combining food intake and vitamin supplements, the report calculates that more than 10 million American children are getting too much vitamin A; more than 13 million get excessive too much zinc; and nearly 5 million get too much niacin. 
 
 EWG's analysis of nutrition facts labels for 1,556 breakfast cereals and 1,025 snack and energy barsidentified: 
 
 •114 cereals fortified with 30% or more of the adult daily value ( or recommended level of intake) for vitamin A, zinc and/or niacin. 
 
 •27 snack and energy bars fortified with 50% or more of the adult daily value for at least one of the three nutrients. 
 
 •23 cereals with added fortification of one or more of the nutrients in amounts "much greater" than the levels deemed safe for children age 8 and younger by the Institute of Medicine, a branch of the National Academy of Sciences. 
 
 Cereals with the highest added nutrient levels include national brands such as Kellogg's Product 19 and General Mills Total Raisin Brain, as well as store brands from Food Lion, Safeway and Stop & Shop. 
 
 In a statement, Kellogg spokesperson Kris Charles says, "The report ignores a great deal of the nutrition science and consumption data showing that without fortification of foods such as ready-to-eat cereals, many children would not get enough vitamins & minerals in their diets. Less than 2 percent of all cereals assessed by EWG made their "Top 23" list and the vast majority of these are adult-oriented cereals not regularly consumed by children." 
 
 The FDA, in a statement, said that proposed daily values for infants (7-12 months) and young children (1-3 years) are being considered, but not for 4-8 year olds "because they consume the same foods as the general population" and the FDA "is not aware of foods that are sold specifically for this age group." 
 
 The agency added that it is proposing lowering daily intakes for these nutrients for the revamped food labels. 
 
 The evidence that millions of children are exceeding the safe upper levels for some nutrients "is fairly good and traceable to excessive marketing-driven fortification," says Susan Roberts, a professor of nutrition at Tufts University, who was not involved in the EWG report. "But right now we don't have a lot of evidence that it is creating massive health problems. Rather, I would say it is unnecessary, not health-promoting, and in some individual cases may be causing toxic problems." 
 
 To help reduce the amount of vitamin A, zinc and niacin that kids consume, EWG says parents should limit the fortified cereals and other foods kids eat to those that contain no more than 20% to 25% of the adult daily value for each of the nutrients. 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/1iAxK3v ||||| In a rare case, an 11-month-old infant in Spain developed scurvy because the only food he ate was an almond-based baby formula that didn't have vitamin C, according to a new report of his case. 
 
 The baby was brought to the doctor because he was acting irritable and losing weight; he would also cry if someone tried to move his legs. Although the baby had been able to sit up by himself when he was 7 months old, he had since became unstable when sitting, and by the time he reached 11 months, he wasn't walking. 
 
 Tests showed that the infant had bone loss, fractures in his thighbone and very low vitamin C levels, the report said. 
 
 Doctors diagnosed the boy with scurvy — a condition that occurs when a person's diet is severely lacking in vitamin C. This vitamin is needed to make collagen, an important protein in the body that's found in many tissues, including cartilage, bone, skin and teeth. 
 
 The mother said that the child had been fed a cow's milk-based formula early in his life, but at age 2.5 months, he developed a skin reaction, and a doctor recommended that his diet be changed. After that, his only source of nutrition was a beverage that contained mainly almond milk, almond flour, sesame powder and a creamy cereal mixture, the report said. But this beverage lacked some important vitamins, such as vitamin C. 
 
 "This case presents scurvy as a new and severe complication of improper use of almond beverage in the first year of life," the researchers, from Hospital Universitario y Politécnico La Fe in Valencia, wrote in the Jan. 18 issue of the journal Pediatrics. "Pediatricians and parents should be aware that plant-based beverages are not a complete food and they may not replace breastfeeding or infant formula," they said. [4 Easy Ways to Get More Vitamin C] 
 
 Infants need about 50 to 60 milligrams of vitamin C per day, which they can get from breast milk, typical baby formulas, or fruits and vegetables, the report said. The mother tried to feed the child puréed fruits and vegetables after he reached 6 months old, but the child didn't want to eat them, the report said. 
 
 After doctors discovered what was wrong, the child was treated with oral vitamin C and vitamin D, and was fed infant formula, cereals, meat, fruit and vegetables. After a few months, the child's symptoms improved, his vitamin C levels were normal and he began walking, the report said. 
 
 Scurvy is rare today in developed countries. But occasional cases do occur, mainly in older people with poor nutrition, infants who drink boiled milk, or children with restricted diets, the report said. 
 
 Follow Rachael Rettner @RachaelRettner. Follow Live Science @livescience, Facebook & Google+. Original article on Live Science.
– We're told to get our vitamins—but there's a line when enough is enough, and when kids eat fortified breakfast cereal, they may be crossing that line, USA Today reports. "Millions of children are ingesting potentially unhealthy amounts" of three nutrients: vitamin A, zinc, and niacin, per a new report by the health research- and advocacy-minded Environmental Working Group. It found fortified cereal is the biggest source of excess, and says that's because the nutrients are packed in with adults' needs in mind—and labels list daily values set for adults in 1968. Just "a tiny, tiny percentage" of cereals show kids' daily values, says the group's director of research. Per the report, some 10 million US kids get too much vitamin A; 13 million get too much zinc; and almost 5 million get too much niacin. While the three nutrients are necessary, too much vitamin A can eventually cause liver and skeletal problems, too much zinc can be bad for your immune function, and too much niacin can lead to rashes and vomiting. But a Kellogg's rep counters that kids need fortified cereals to get enough vitamins, and points out that of the 1,556 cereals EWG analyzed, only 23 had nutrient levels considered "much greater" than what kids 8 and under should eat—"and the vast majority of these are adult-oriented cereals not regularly consumed by children." Researchers say kids should only eat foods containing a max of 25% of the adult daily value of the nutrients in question.