The premenstrual syndrome. A survey of current treatment practices.

Interest in the premenstrual syndrome (PMS) has increased rapidly in both the lay and professional communities during the past few years. Research on the causes, diagnosis and treatment of the disorder continues to expand. An area that has received little attention, however, is the current treatment practices of physicians who recognize PMS as a treatable disorder. Our study was a survey of 502 physicians from the United States and Canada regarding diagnostic and treatment services provided to their PMS patients. Descriptive results of the survey, as well as breakdowns by medical specialty and region, were obtained. The results have implications for current practice and future research.

Increasing polyunsaturation of milk fats by feeding formaldehyde protected sunflower-soybean supplement.

A practical means of protecting fats of a feed concentrate containing high polyunsaturated fatty acids is described. A ground mixture of 30% soybeans and 70% sunflower seeds was treated with 1% formaldehyde to protect the unsaturated lipids from microbial hydrogenation in the rumen. This was fed as a supplement to two Holstein cows in amounts that were doubled weekly. These ranged from 524 to 8384 g/day and provided successively increasing intakes of 100, 200, 400, 800, and 1600 g of linoleic acid daily. Percent milk fat increased by more than one, and linoleic acid (C18:2) of milk fat increased from 2.5 to 20% with compensatory declines in myristic (C14:0) and palmitic (C16:0) acids. Cholesterol and vitamin E of plasma both doubled at the highest supplementation. Milk yield, solids-not-fat, protein and milk cholesterol were unaltered. Fat in feces doubled from about 3 to 6%. Daily linoleic acid content of feces increased from 25 g to 120 g, indicating a dietary loss of 7 to 10% of this polyunsaturated acid. These cheaper feed ingredients elevated the polyunsaturated fats in milk as effectively as the expensive purified casein and safflower oil supplements in previous experiments.