[Body vitamin allowance of vegetable growers working on sheltered soil]

The providing of hothouse workers with vitamins B1, B2, B6, PP, C and E was comprehensively evaluated basing on the study of their actual nutrition and biochemical parameters of their vitamin status--daily excretion of vitamins and their metabolites with urine, vitamin concentration in the blood serum and activity of erythrocytic vitamin-dependent enzymes with calculation of their activation coefficients. Multiple hypovitaminosis detected in the vegetable growers working in hothouses who received normal amounts of these essential nutrients with food, as well as the relationship noted between the vitamin-providing level and the length of working in the hothouse, evidence a possible influence of the occupational factors--the character of work attended by the action of toxic chemical compounds under conditions of the hothouse microclimate. Further investigations should be conducted to determine the vitamin requirements of hothouse workers.