| [Objections] The soldiers are often exposed in hot environment. A series of stress reactions of metabolism and physiological status in our body could be caused in hot environment. To some extent, those reactions are compensatory responses, while people work under the hot conditions. But if heat stresses exceed the suitable limitation, they can have a negative affect on people's health, or even cause calenture. Consequently we should pay more attention to nutritional support of army officers and soldiers in hot environment, because it is very significant to advance heat acclimatization and make them in hot environment to exist and fight well. The new nutrient requirements of the soldiers under the condition of special military operation and special regions were studied and the standard revised in 1997, but it has passed over 10 years. During the period, the national dietary standard has revised several times, and the newest standard has changed from "RDA" to "DRIs". So it is urgent to revise the nutrient standard in army men. In order to investigate the army's nutritional state and formulate the new dietary standard, a nutrition survey was conducted.[Methods] Nearly 80 army officers and soldiers, who always work in hot environment, were involved in this survey randomly. The survey included energy consumption survey, dietary survey and laboratory examinations. 1. Energy consumption survey: 4 soldiers with moderate body height and weight were involved, and the life style of 24h in last 3 days, was observed to calculate the energy consumption and grade physical labor intensity. 2. Dietary survey: Food weighted method weighted all food items consumed by all the army officers and soldiers in last 5 days in summer and in other season food record method recorded all food items in last 1 month, respectively. The dietary structure, the intakes of all kinds of nutrients, the proportion of three nutrients to total energy and the food source of protein or fat were assessed. 3. Laboratory examinations: It contained physical examinations and biochemical tests. Physical examinations contained the determinations of body height and weight, waistline, upper arm circumference, skinfold thickness and grasp force. Biochemical test included the soldiers' plasma protein, fat and immune status preformed by Automatic biochemical analyzer, the condition of thiamin, lactoflavin and antiscorbic acid state by the urine lading experiment, the soldiers' plasma vitamin A by HPLC method and mineral elements by ICP-AES method. [Results] 1. Energy consumption survey showed that soldiers' surface area were (1.78±0.03) m~2 on average, and the energy consumption was 13.72±1.3MJ(3278+310.78kcal) . According to the gradation of labor intensity, it belongs to medium labor intensity. 2. Dietary survey showed that dietary structure of the officers and soldiers was unreasonable. Take the rice as the meals main body, the surface kind, the miscellaneous grains and other cereal consumption quantities are very fewer. The average intakes of cereal, vegetables and vegetable oil were 423g, 495g and 92g, but compared with the army standard, cereal and vegetables lower, vegetable oil higher, being 56.4%, 66.0% and 184%, respectively, and without taking poultry meat and livers. The average intake of energy was 14.11 MJ (3371 kcal) , which already met the need, but the fat provided the energy accounts for39.5%. The average intakes of calcium, vitamin A, thiamin, lactoflavin and vitamin B6 were 732 mg, 698μgRE, 1.6mg, 1.2mg and 1.2mg, compared with the army standard, amounting to 83.2%,69.8%,72.7%,72.7% and 54.5%, respectively. The same problems took place in the record survey. 3. The laboratory examinations showed that the average body height and weight were (169.2±4.82) cm and(61.0±6.36) kg, respectively. 32.9% and 2.5% of the officers and soldiers were mild and moderate muscle wasting, respectively, and 7.6% was excess body fat. The prevalence rates of high serum low density lipoprotein cholesterol, low serum high density lipoprotein cholesterol, hyperlipidemia were 6.7%, 66.7%, 30%, respectively. The level of serum Se and Ca were very low. The urine lading experiment showed that incidences of thiamine, riboflavin, antiscorbic acid insufficiency were 6.7%,53.3%,10%, respectively, and riboflavin deficiency was 10%.[Conclusions] The survey showed that those officers and soldiers' health were well. The intakes of energy and protein were adequate, but there are still some problems. Firstly, fat was in excess supply and calcium, thiamin and lactoflavin were in short supply in their diet. Secondly, antiscorbic acid, selenium and vitamin A maybe in short supply in their diet. Thirdly, their dietary structure was unreasonable and the wrong cook led to some vitamins losing. The main reason was that the officers and soldiers lacked generally knowledge of nutrition; they often bought and cooked food only according to their fondness for food, and thought that grain could not be compared with animal foods in terms of nutritive value, which leaded to over much fat intake. An effective way of nutritional education should be practiced to improve the officers and soldiers' nutritional knowledge to change the unreasonable dietary structure and provide support for the formation of good behaviors to improve their nutrition status.
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