Over-the-counter emergency contraception: a feasible option.

Background: The high number of unintended pregnancies and terminations in Britain indicates that women who could use emergency contraception do not. Knowledge of access to sources of emergency contraception is limited. Oral administration of combined oestrogen-progestogen is safe and does not require routine physical administration, and there are proposals to re-regulate this from a prescription-only medicine to a pharmacy medicine, available over the counter in community pharmacies under the supervision of a pharmacist.

Feeding of partially hydrogenated fish oils to rats in comparison with partially hydrogenated soybean oil and refined rapeseed oil: a combined chronic oral toxicity and carcinogenicity study with in utero phase.

Partially hydrogenated fish oils (PHFO) have been widely used in human food products for many years, particularly in Europe, North and South America and in South Africa. Animal studies, mainly with rapeseed oil, suggested that erucic acid might be responsible for morphological changes in the myocardium. It was suggested that other members of the docosenoic (22:1) family of fatty acids might produce similar effects to those ascribed to erucic acid.

Two methods for determining erucic acid in edible fats and oils: results from a collaborative study on a rapid, open-tubular (capillary) GLC method and comparison with an isolation TLC procedure.

The results of an international collaborative study for the determination of 5% erucic acid in four samples of edible fats and oils with differing levels of 22:1 isomers other than erucic acid, based on the use of wall-coated (SILAR-5CP) open-tubular gas-liquid chromatography, are examined. The same samples had been analyzed in a separate collaborative study by an alternative and more complex method based on argentation thin-layer chromatography. Both methods rejected about the same proportion of participating laboratories and a few individual results from otherwise acceptable laboratories.

Comparison of lipid status in the hearts of piglets and rats on short term feeding of marine oils and rapeseed oils.

A series of 4 experiments with piglets and one experiment with rats has been conducted to establish the cardiac lipid status of weanling (3 weeks old) male animals fed fats with different contents of docosenoic fatty acids. Experimental fats were rapeseed oil (RSO) (48.0% 22:1), refined fish oil (RFO) (14.