Open dataset · Canada Doses vs US Limits
This page describes version 2.0, which is built and awaiting deposit. The earlier version 1.0 (doi:10.5281/zenodo.24180566) is superseded and should not be used; the corrections record below says what changed. The files below carry this version's hashes and get their links when it is deposited.
The unit is the licence number. Health Canada's database holds one record per product name, and one licence can carry several names (one jar sold as "Vitamin C 1,000 mg", "Vitamin C" and "C 1000 mg" is one licence): 308,733 name records are 153,975 licences. Records of one licence are merged and every name is kept in the product_names column.
For 14,230 Canadian natural health product licences with a recommended adult dose that can be read as a number of tablets or capsules a day, the maximum daily amount of ten plain-mass nutrients (vitamin C, vitamin B6, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, iodine) at the licence's highest recommended dose, and that amount as a share of the NIH adult upper limit (35,630 licence-nutrient rows).
A licence is an authorisation to recommend, not a measure of intake. What each limit covers is in the limit_scope column of nutrient-summary.csv: for most of these nutrients the NIH limit is for total intake from food and supplements together, and for magnesium it is for supplemental magnesium only. One product is compared alone, so a share can be well under 100% for a product and still sit above a limit once everything else a person takes is added. A share above ten times the limit is flagged: it is more often a data-entry or unit issue in the licence record. About half of the licences listing these nutrients cannot be checked (liquids, powders, doses not stated per day) and are not in the counts.
The files will be hosted on Zenodo with the DOI. Each has a SHA-256 hash, so a downloaded copy can be checked against it.
| File | Size | SHA-256 (first 16) |
|---|---|---|
| README.md | 5 KB | 90b3f39d9db39c4d |
| licence-nutrients.csv | 5.9 MB | 6bdef389ec8e7485 |
| nutrient-summary.csv | 807 bytes | fb5e6c09f3a644c9 |
| not-checkable-reasons.csv | 2 KB | 7ce371a4c505b10b |
| data.json | 2 KB | c9966dd5293698f6 |
| control-result.json | 540 bytes | 30c27dc2d2eff994 |
| PROTOCOL-CANADA-DOSE-VS-LIMIT-2026-11-12.md | 7 KB | 454f30cc7cc978f0 |
| protocol.sha256 | 110 bytes | f9e55c2b744c1242 |
| protocol.original.sha256 | 110 bytes | c075bc9f6b7c659b |
| code.zip | 36 KB | 514f2a011dc96cbb |
| SHA256SUMS.txt | 943 bytes | |
The method was frozen before any figure was published, on 12 November 2026; its SHA-256 hash begins 454f30cc7cc978f0. A separate reader recomputed figures from the raw files: a random sample of 400 recomputed, 0 mismatches. Read how the Canada vs US Dose Check was checked, including what the check found and what it does not cover.
That any product is safe, unsafe, toxic or dangerous; that exceeding a US limit causes harm; any dose recommendation; any comparison with Canada's own reference intakes.
Version 2.0 (13 November 2026) replaces version 1.0 (doi:10.5281/zenodo.24180566), which should not be used. Two defects, both found by comparing the published numbers with an independent count, are corrected. (1) The limit row: the method says the NIH adult limit at age 19, but the code matched the 14 to 18 year row for six nutrients (zinc, vitamin B6, vitamin C, manganese, copper, iodine), so those were compared with the teen limit while labelled adult. (2) The unit: version 1.0 counted product-name records as licences; one licence can carry several names, so 33,623 records were 14,230 licences. Version 1.0 also stated 3,656 of 33,623 licences at or over a limit, which divided distinct licences by name records and was wrong on any reading; the corrected figure is 3,395 of 14,230 licences (23.9%). The independent control had taken its limits from the builder's own output and sampled records, so it could not see either defect; it now re-derives the limits from the NIH tables, checks the licence count and samples licences. What changed:
| Nutrient | Limit in v1.0 | Limit in v2.0 | Share at or over in v1.0 | Share at or over in v2.0 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| vitamin C | 1800 mg | 2000 mg | 7.9% of 14,871 | 6.9% of 6,426 |
| vitamin B6 | 80 mg | 100 mg | 13.6% of 10,800 | 10.6% of 4,612 |
| calcium | 2500 mg | 2500 mg | 3.7% of 8,686 | 3.5% of 3,601 |
| iron | 45 mg | 45 mg | 22.1% of 5,310 | 19.5% of 1,899 |
| magnesium | 350 mg | 350 mg | 27.6% of 11,565 | 26.3% of 4,708 |
| zinc | 34 mg | 40 mg | 18.3% of 12,944 | 16.4% of 4,984 |
| copper | 8000 mcg | 10000 mcg | 1.6% of 6,669 | 0.9% of 2,580 |
| manganese | 9 mg | 11 mg | 9.6% of 5,219 | 3.5% of 2,144 |
| selenium | 400 mcg | 400 mcg | 4.2% of 6,925 | 5.0% of 2,896 |
| iodine | 900 mcg | 1100 mcg | 2.7% of 4,295 | 1.6% of 1,780 |
Control: 400 sampled licences, 0 problems against the raw tables, and the ten limits match the NIH tables.
Couey, V. W. (2026). Canadian Natural Health Product Recommended Doses vs US Upper Limits 2026: 14,230 Licences, Ten Nutrients (Version 2.0) [Data set]. Zenodo. (DOI assigned when this version is deposited)
Health Canada, Licensed Natural Health Products Database open data (productlicence, productdose, medicinalingredient), downloaded 2026-11-12; NIH Office of Dietary Supplements Health Professional fact sheets (upper limits, adults 19 to 50). Compiled by Vincent Wesley Couey (ORCID 0009-0005-6869-308X). Tool: https://healthbritannica.com/tools/canada-vs-us-dose-check
For 14,230 Canadian natural health product licences with a recommended adult dose that can be read as a number of tablets or capsules a day, the maximum daily amount of ten plain-mass nutrients (vitamin C, vitamin B6, calcium, iron, magnesium, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, iodine) at the licence's highest recommended dose, and that amount as a share of the NIH adult upper limit (35,630 licence-nutrient rows).
Yes. The compilation is licensed CC BY 4.0: reuse it with credit, citing the DOI once this version is deposited. The underlying records keep the terms of their public source.
The method was frozen and hashed before any figure was published (12 November 2026), and a separate reader recomputed figures from the raw files: a random sample of 400 recomputed, 0 mismatches. The full account is on the how-we-check page for the tool.
That any product is safe, unsafe, toxic or dangerous; that exceeding a US limit causes harm; any dose recommendation; any comparison with Canada's own reference intakes.
Compiled by Vincent Wesley Couey (ORCID 0009-0005-6869-308X).