Selected polyphenols as growth promoter

REDONDO, L M; REDONDO, E A; CHACANA, P; FERNANDEZ MIYAKAWA, ME

Paris

Simposio; 2nd International Symposium on Alternatives to Antibiotics: Challenges and Solutions in Animal Production; 2016

IOE - USDA

Plant tissues are rich in a wide variety of secondary metabolites which have been found to have invitro antimicrobial properties. Tannins, a type of plant polyphenol, are widely distributed among plantspecies in which they play a protective role against pathogen attack. Tannins in different plant specieshave specific physical and chemical properties which enclose very different biological activities.A series of in vitro and in vivo studies from our laboratory have been performed to characterizeproperties of different natural polyphenols, resulting in the selection of some of them to design asuitable blend to replace and improve the use of antibiotics as growth promoters. These selectedtannins showed bacteriostatic and bactericidal activities against different pathogens, includingClostridium perfringens and antitoxin properties without evident induction of bacterial resistance. Also,this combination of selected natural compounds was able to regulate the intestinal microbiota, thephysiologic host function, the morphology of the gastrointestinal tract, and the resistance to differentinfectious diseases of broilers including necrotic enteritis (NE). The weight gain was improved whencompared to non-growth promoter control under all the different conditions tested: experimentalfarm (1.8%), experimental pathogen challenge (5-22%) and commercial farm (4.8%). A two yearsevaluation in large commercial settings of different countries with a specifically designed productbased on previous lab trials (SilvaFeed HG) corroborated our previous findings. In all of the analyzedfarms, comparing to controls using antibiotic growth promoters, an improvement of intestinal health,lesions, weight gain and reduction of mortality were measured, showing an improvement of productiveparameters with cost reduction. The available information supports the use of specific mixture oftannins as alternative to antibiotic growth promoters.