For more information about the health effects, please refer to the background paper by Agneta Oskarsson and Maria Kippler (Oskarsson & Kippler, 2023).
Dietary sources and intake. Molybdenum is ubiquitous in food and water as soluble molybdates. The main dietary sources of molybdenum are cereal products, vegetables and dairy products (Oskarsson & Kippler, 2023). There are few published studies on the dietary intake in the Nordic countries. Dietary intake is approximately 30 µg/day in children, and 60–172 µg/day in adults. Plasma molybdenum reflects longer-term intake and 24-h urinary excretion is related to recent intake. No intake data on molybdenum are available from Nordic and Baltic dietary surveys (Lemming & Pitsi, 2022).
Main functions. Molybdenum is a cofactor for enzymes involved in oxidation of purines to uric acid, metabolism of aromatic aldehydes and heterocyclic compounds and in the catabolism of sulphur amino acids.
Indicator for recommended intake. No indicator was identified for setting AR and RI.
Main data gaps. Indicators for AR and UL based on health outcomes in humans.
Deficiency and risk groups. Although considered an essential element, there are no reports on clinical signs of dietary molybdenum deficiency in healthy humans (Oskarsson & Kippler, 2023). Total parenteral nutrition with no molybdenum results in signs of clinical deficiency, including irritability, tachycardia, tachypnea, night blindness, low plasma methionine, low serum uric acid, and reduced urinary concentrations of sulphate, thiosulphate and uric acid (normalized after 30 days of treatment with 300 µg/day of ammonium molybdate) (Oskarsson & Kippler, 2023).
Dietary reference values. IOM set an AR (34 µg/d) and RI (45 µg/d) for adults, and RI and AI for certain other life-stage groups (IOM, 2001). EFSA set only an AI for adults (15–65 µg/d) due to limited evidence (EFSA, 2013a). For NNR2023, AI is set to 65 µg/day (females and males), based the AI from the lower end of the range of observed intakes from mixed diets in European countries, as given by EFSA (EFSA, 2013a). A provisional AR is set to 52 µg/day (females and males).
Based on EFSA (2018), UL is set at 0.6 mg/d.