BACKGROUND/PURPOSE The advice that an adequate vitamin D status can be achieved by short, casual exposure to summer sunlight is ubiquitous. This review will examine the value of this advice. METHODS The results of experimental studies on changes in serum 25-hydroxyvitamin D [25(OH)D] concentrations following ultraviolet exposure are interpreted in the context of human exposure to sunlight. ...

1 Health Technology Assessment Unit, Institute for Research in Extramural Medicine, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 2 International Health Foundation, Utrecht, The Netherlands 3 Department of General Practice, Institute for Research in Extramural Medicine, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands 4 Institute for Research in Extramural Medicine, VU Univer...

This study is part of the Follow up Restoration Program of animal communities that colonize the Guadiamar River Basin. In 1998, the area was affected by a release of toxic sludge after the retention walls of the Aznalcóllar Mines (southern Iberian Peninsula) broke. The main objective of this study was to assess the current state of the population of Tenebrionidae, one of the most representative...

This interlaboratory study on determination of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25-OH-D) in serum involved 15 laboratories in eight European countries. All could distinguish between normal (50 +/- 31 nmol/L, mean +/- SD) and grossly increased concentrations, but for eight laboratories the results for serum samples with low and normal 25-OH-D content overlapped. In general, values were well reproducible, bu...

We analyze the internal spatial wage and employment structures of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia, using regional data for 1996-2000. A new economic geography model predicts wage gradients and specialization patterns that are smoothly related to regions’ relative market access. As an alternative, we formulate a “Comecon hypothesis”, according to which wages and sector...