This symposium, held in Lyon, France, in September 1998, at the Fifth International Congress of the International Society for Trace Element Research in Humans (ISTERH), addressed the recent advances in boron (B) essentiality research in animals and humans. At the previous Fourth International Congress of ISTERH held in Taormina, Sicily, in September 1995, two of the current presenters (F.H. Nielsen and C.D. Hunt) had given talks on their many years of nutritional studies of boron in animals and humans, whereas several other speakers had given presentations on various aspects of animal and human toxicology and risk assessment considerations. The Sicily symposium was published in its entirety in this journal .
The speakers assembled in Lyon for the 1998 Boron Symposium represented the fields of chemistry and biochemistry, nutrition science, human health, and dietary assessment. This symposium addressed the biochemical, physiological, and nutritional database on boron compounds in animals and humans, as well as innovative approaches for the determination of boron's nutritional essentiality. In addition to eight formal presentations, the speakers were joined in a concluding panel discussion by three nutrition and toxicology experts: Roger A. Sunde (