Health Britannica · Supplement data tool · Health Canada licences read 2026-11-12
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Example result.
Recommended maximum is at or over the US limit
167 mg in one dosage unit, up to 3 units a day at the highest recommended adult dose = 501 mg a day, 143% of the US adult limit of 350 mg.
Health Canada Licensed Natural Health Products Database, downloaded 2026-11-12; NIH Office of Dietary Supplements upper limits, adults 19 to 50. A licence is an authorisation to recommend, not a measure of intake. Check the licence.
Compiled and checked by Vincent Wesley Couey (ORCID 0009-0005-6869-308X) from the Health Canada Licensed Natural Health Products Database, downloaded 2026-11-12, and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements. Not an official source.
You read it as a maximum recommended amount and a share of a limit, not a verdict.
It depends on the nutrient. Magnesium licences recommend at or over the limit most often (28%); each nutrient has its own page.
| Nutrient | Licences checked | At or over the US limit | Half the limit or more |
|---|---|---|---|
| Magnesium | 11,565 | 3,186 (28%) | 5,221 (45%) |
| Iron | 5,310 | 1,171 (22%) | 2,637 (50%) |
| Zinc | 12,944 | 2,369 (18%) | 6,434 (50%) |
| Vitamin B6 | 10,800 | 1,469 (14%) | 2,931 (27%) |
| Manganese | 5,219 | 503 (10%) | 1,811 (35%) |
| Vitamin C | 14,871 | 1,175 (8%) | 2,583 (17%) |
| Selenium | 6,925 | 292 (4%) | 1,345 (19%) |
| Calcium | 8,686 | 319 (4%) | 985 (11%) |
| Iodine | 4,295 | 116 (3%) | 371 (9%) |
| Copper | 6,669 | 107 (2%) | 809 (12%) |
Licences with a recommended adult dose that could be read as units a day, at the licence's highest recommended dose, against the NIH adult limit. 63,294 licences list one of these nutrients; 33,623 could be checked.
For all ten nutrients, a larger share of the Canadian licences checked than of the US labels checked recommend an amount at or over the NIH adult upper limit. Iron shows the widest gap: 22% of Canadian licences against 4% of US labels. This is a comparison of two sets of products under two different readings of a dose, not a finding that one country allows more.
| Nutrient | US labels at or over the limit (at maximum daily servings) | Canadian licences at or over the limit (highest recommended adult dose) |
|---|---|---|
| Magnesium | 17.3% of 28,569 | 27.5% of 11,565 |
| Iron | 4.2% of 13,237 | 22.1% of 5,310 |
| Zinc | 7.6% of 26,147 | 18.3% of 12,944 |
| Vitamin B6 | 6.8% of 29,582 | 13.6% of 10,800 |
| Manganese | 5.6% of 15,704 | 9.6% of 5,219 |
| Vitamin C | 3.3% of 36,361 | 7.9% of 14,871 |
| Selenium | 3.1% of 16,529 | 4.2% of 6,925 |
| Calcium | 1.2% of 35,484 | 3.7% of 8,686 |
| Iodine | 2.2% of 13,814 | 2.7% of 4,295 |
| Copper | 0.4% of 13,739 | 1.6% of 6,669 |
US figures from the the Supplement Label Atlas; Canadian figures from this check. The US measure takes a label's first listed serving at its stated maximum daily servings; the Canadian measure takes the licence's highest recommended adult dose. The sets cover different products, the US set includes labels for products now off the market, and about half of the Canadian licences listing these nutrients cannot be read as tablets or capsules a day and are not counted. Each share is of the products checked in its own set.
The most common mistake reads a label's maximum as what people take. A licence records what a company may recommend, at its highest.
"The licence recommends more than the US limit, so anyone using it is taking too much."
Read it as a fact about the label's highest recommended dose against a limit for all supplement sources together. Whether it matters for you depends on your diet, your other supplements and your doctor's advice. the NIH dietary reference intakes explains what the limits are.
Any licensed product can be shown on another site as a self-sizing panel, free with the source line left in place.
<div data-canada-us-dose data-key="l00732265" data-shard="6"></div>
<script async src="https://healthbritannica.com/tools/canada-vs-us-dose-check/embed.js"></script>Set data-key and data-shard from the product's result address.
Type the product's name into the check. It shows, for each of ten nutrients on the licence, the most the licence recommends an adult takes in a day, and that amount as a share of the NIH adult upper limit.
Health Canada licenses natural health products and gives each a licence number (NPN). The licence records the ingredients, the amount in each dosage unit and the recommended dose, and authorises the company to sell the product with that label.
No. The check compares one licence's recommended maximum with a US population intake limit that covers all supplement sources together for adults 19 to 50. A recommendation at or over that limit is a fact about the label. Whether it matters depends on the person, the other supplements they take and their doctor's advice.
A share more than ten times the limit is more often a data-entry or unit issue in the licence record than an intended dose. The page says so and asks you to check the licence record.
Only licences with one of ten plain-mass nutrients and a recommended adult dose that can be read as a number of tablets or capsules a day are checked. Liquids, powders, vitamins A, D and E, niacin and folate are out of scope, and about half the licences with these nutrients cannot be read this way.
This check compares Canadian licences with the US limit only. It does not say what Health Canada's own reference intakes are or that the two differ.
Health Canada's Licensed Natural Health Products Database open data (licences, recommended doses and medicinal ingredients), downloaded 2026-11-12, and the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements upper limits for adults 19 to 50.
Yes. The embed code on this page shows any licensed product as a self-sizing panel, free to use with the source line left in place.
The check was built from Health Canada's licence, dose and ingredient open data and the NIH upper limits under a method written and hashed before any licence was compared with any limit. Every licence is accounted for as checked or not checkable, and a separate reader recomputed the amounts, doses and shares for 300 random licences from the raw tables with no mismatch. The same code produces the result on this page, on each nutrient's page and in the embed. What the independent check found. The dataset behind it is published at doi:10.5281/zenodo.24180566. Further reading: the Health Canada Licensed Natural Health Products Database; the LNHPD open data documentation; Health Canada natural and non-prescription health products; natural health product regulation in Canada; Health Canada dietary reference intakes; the NIH Office of Dietary Supplements; the NIH dietary reference intakes; the National Academies dietary reference intakes; the NIH Dietary Supplement Label Database; FDA dietary supplements; the Supplement Label Atlas.