Conclusions: Vitamin D status is alarmingly poor in active, relatively young women residing in Romania. If our results are reproduced by other investigations, action to improve vitamin D status at the population level is necessary. We were not able to show a statistically significant relationship between vitamin D status and infection risk in our material.
Keywords
Vitamin D Romania Infections riskThe important role of vitamin D in Ca metabolism and bone health is well accepted (1) . The discovery that most human tissues are able to produce and use active vitamin D triggered extensive research of vitamin D's biological functions beyond bone health. Experimental and epidemiological work has shown that vitamin D reduces risk and improves prognosis of cancer (2) . Moreover, vitamin D plays important roles in the regulation of innate and adaptive immunity and seems to decrease the risk and modulate the course of various infections (3)(4)(5)(6) . Vitamin D itself has low biological activity, but undergoes activation by successive hydroxylations: in the liver with the formation of 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) and in the kidney with the production of 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH) 2 D) (7) . It is becoming increasingly clear that 1,25(OH) 2 D also can be produced outside the kidney. This local production may have very important implications for the effects of vitamin D on health.The body is able to synthesize vitamin D upon sufficient UV exposure. In fact, skin synthesis is the main source of vitamin D in most populations, proving a high efficiency of this reaction when the oral intake (from regular poor diet) is low (8) . It is believed that a whole-body exposure at one MED (minimal erythema dose) generates 250-500 mg (10 000-20 000 IU) of vitamin D, which is equivalent to the vitamin D content of 250 ml of cod-liver oil (9)(10)(11) .Since man is to a high degree dependent on the skin production of vitamin D, factors altering either the fluence rate of UV radiation (like altitude, latitude, cloud cover, clothing habits, use of sun screens) or skin properties (like skin colour, age) are the main predictors of vitamin D status.Romania is located at a latitude of 458N which ensures a sufficient UV fluence rate to efficiently produce vitamin D from March to October (12) . At the same time, Romanians have no practice of vitamin D food fortification or tradition of cod-liver oil consumption. This means that their