Effective interprofessional working, which is widely considered as essential to high-quality health care, is influenced by the attitudes of health care professionals towards their own and other professional groups. Relatively little is known, however, about interprofessional attitudes, particularly of students in health care professions. This study aimed to increase our understanding of students' attitudes towards their own and other professional groups on entry to a programme of professional education. Hypothesised relationships between stereotypes, professional identity and readiness for professional learning were tested by means of a questionnaire survey of 933 undergraduate health care students drawn from five health care groups (medicine, nursing, dietetics, pharmacy and physiotherapy) within a multi-faculty UK university. Positive statistically significant correlations were found between stereotypes, professional identity and readiness for interprofessional learning. As predicted, students identified strongly with their own professional group at the start of pre-registration education. They were also willing to engage in interprofessional learning. More unexpected was the positive association found between heterostereotype and professional identity scores. There are potential benefits of introducing active interprofessional education activities at an early stage of professional preparation to capitalise on students' positive attitudes towards their own and other professional groups.

Fifty Suffolk-crossbred wether lambs, with an initial live weight of 29 +/- 2.1 kg, were allocated to one of five concentrate-based diets formulated to have a similar fatty acid content (60 g/kg DM), but containing either linseed oil (high in 18:3n-3); fish oil (high in 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3); protected linseed and soybean (PLS; high in 18:2n-6 and 18:3n-3); fish oil and marine algae (fish/algae; high in 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3); or PLS and algae (PLS/algae; high in 18:3n-3 and 22:6n-3). Lambs were slaughtered when they reached 40 kg. Growth performance and intake were similar (P > 0.35) among treatments. By contrast, gain:feed was higher (P < 0.05) in lambs fed the fish oil compared with the linseed oil or PLS/algae diets. Total fatty acid concentration (mg/100 g) in the neutral lipid of the longissimus muscle was not affected by treatment (P > 0.87) but was least (P < 0.05) in the phospholipid fraction in lambs fed the linseed oil diet. Lambs fed either diet containing marine algae contained the highest (P < 0.05) percentage of 22:6n-3 in the phospholipid (mean of 5.2%), 2.8-fold higher than in sheep fed the fish oil diet. In lambs fed the fish/algae diet, the percentage of 20:5n-3 was highest (P < 0.05), contributing some 8.7, 0.8, and 0.5% of the total fatty acids in the muscle phospholipid, neutral lipids, and adipose tissue, respectively. The percentage of 18:3n-3 in the phospholipid fraction of the LM was highest (P < 0.05) in lambs fed the linseed oil diet (6.9%), a value double that of sheep fed the PLS diet. By contrast, lambs fed the PLS diet had twice the percentage of 18:3n-3 in the muscle neutral lipids (3.8%) than those offered the linseed oil diet, and 5.5-fold greater than lambs fed the fish/algae treatment (P < 0.05), an effect that was similar in the adipose tissue. The percentage of 18:2n-6 was highest (P < 0.05) in lambs fed the PLS diet, where it contributed 33.7, 10.1, and 11.2% in the muscle phospholipid, neutral lipids, and adipose tissue, respectively. The highest (P < 0.05) muscle PUFA-to-saturated fatty acid (P:S) ratio was obtained in lambs fed the PLS diet (0.57), followed by the PLS/algae diet (0.46), and those fed the fish oil or linseed oil diets had the lowest ratios (0.19 and 0.26, respectively). The favorable P:S ratio of lambs fed the PLS/algae diet, in conjunction with the increased levels of 20:5n-3 and 22:6n-3, enhanced the nutritional qualities of lamb to more closely resemble what is recommended for the human diet.

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Economy line foods represent excellent value for money and are not nutritionally inferior to the branded products. They have a potentially important role to play in the promotion of healthy eating, especially amongst low income households.

Six cannulated wether sheep weighing 57 (s.d. 4·3) kg were used to investigate the susceptibility of unprotected and protected n-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids from different sources to biohydrogenation in the rumen, their uptake into plasma and effects on ruminal metabolism. The sheep were assigned to one of six dietary treatments formulated to have a similar fatty acid content (60 g/kg DM) and containing: linseed oil (LO), linseed oil absorbed into vermiculite (VLO), formic acid-formaldehyde treated whole linseed (FLS), fish oil (FO), fat encapsulated fish oil (PFO) or a mixture of fish oil and marine algae (1: 1 on an oil basis; AF), in six periods of 28 days duration in a Latin-square design. Biohydrogenation of C20:5(n-3) and C22:6(n-3) was high in FO at approximately 870 g/kg, but reduced to 625 and 625 g/kg respectively for PFO, and 769 and 601 g/kg respectively for AF. Ruminal biohydrogenation of C18:3(n-3) was similar across treatments based on linseed, averaging 860 g/kg, but C18:2(n-6) was lower (P< 0·05) in animals given VLO or FLS at 792 and 837 g/kg respectively, compared with LO (907 g/kg). Duodenal flow of C18:1trans in animals given any of the diets containing fish oil averaged 8·4 g/day compared with 2·8 g/day in animals given diets based on linseed (P< 0·001), whilst cis-9, trans-11 conjugated linoleic acid was not significantly different among treatments. Plasma C20:5(n-3) and C22:6(n-3) proportions were highest in animals given the AF diet (11·8 and 8·2 g per 100 g of the total fatty acids respectively) and lowest in animals given LO (2·8 and 2·7 g per 100 g of the total fatty acids respectively;P< 0·001). By contrast, plasma C18:3(n-3) proportions were highest in animals given the LO or VLO diets at approximately 6·9 g per 100 g of the total fatty acids, and lowest in the AF treatment at 0·9 g per 100 g (P< 0·001). Duodenal non-ammonia-N flow was similar among treatments at 21·0 g/day except in animals given FLS which had the highest flow (25·9 g N per day;P< 0·01). Microbial N flow was also similar among treatments whilst microbial efficiency (g N per kg OM truly degraded in the rumen) was higher (P< 0·05) in animals given FLS than LO, FO or AF. By contrast, ruminal fibre digestion was higher (P< 0·05) in animals given LO or FO than those offered VLO, FLS, PFO or AF. In conclusion, compared with linseed oil, absorption of linseed oil into vermiculite improved duodenal flow but not plasma levels of C18:3(n-3), whilst formic acid-formaldehyde treatment of linseed had little effect on protecting C18:3(n-3) in the rumen, although duodenal non-ammonia nitrogen flow and microbial efficiency were improved. Compared with fish oil, the provision of marine algae or fat encapsulated fish oil resulted in a lower biohydrogenation of C22:6(n-3) and C20:5(n-3), and an increased duodenal flow and plasma concentration and offers the potential to favourably manipulate the n-3 fatty acid composition of sheep meat.