Supplementation of Tea Polyphenol Mixed with Sweetener to Diet Included with or without Flax Oil Increased Blood Serum Antioxidantive Capacity without Affecting Growth Performance of Large White Gilts

Tea polyphenol (TP) that was extracted from green tea can be used as natural antioxidant to improve animal health and body antioxidative capacity. Flax oil (FO) contains high amount of omega-3 linolenic acid and can be added to diets as energy source and for increasing amount of functional fatty acids in animal body. This study designed as 2 by 2 factorial trial was to investigate effect of inclusions of TP and FO in diet on growth performance, body health and major antioxidative capacity of gilts. To avoid the possible negative influence of TP bitter taste on feed intake a sweetener was premixed with TP for inclusion in the diets. Total 40 growing Large White gilts with an average body weight of 59 kg were assigned to 4 groups (n=10) fed ad libtum with following diets for 7 weeks: 1) a control (CON) diet; 2) CON diet+ 400mg/kg TP and 200mg/kg sweetener; 3) a diet containing 2% FO; 4) the FO diet + TP 400mg/kg and 200mg/kg sweetener. During the study daily growth and intake data were automatically collected through using Feed Intake Recording Equipment (FIRE). On the last day of feeding study fasting blood samples were taken from each group (n=5). From the study it was found that inclusion of FO increased (P<0.05) average daily gain (ADG) and feed intake (FI), however it resulted in larger (P<0.05) ratio of FI:ADG. Within the normal ranges for health pigs, blood serum albumin and IgM were also increased (P<0.05) by inclusion of FO, whereas AST, ALT, TP, glucose and IgG were not affected (P>0.1) by all treatments. Supplementation of TP mixed with sweetener increased (P<0.01) major antioxidative capacity related parameters e.g. GSH-Px, CAT, T-SOD and T-AOC in blood serum without affecting (P>0.05) growth performance. However, blood MDA level was also increased (P<0.01) by the treatment. In conclusion, inclusion of 2% FO to the diets of CON and FO increased feed intake, ADG and blood serum IgM but reduced feed efficiency of the gilts. Inclusion of 400 mg/kg TP mixed with Lucta sweetener to the diets of CON and FO increased major blood serum antioxidative capacity without affecting the animal growth performance. The results suggest that TP mixed with the sweetener can be included in swine diets for providing animal body with more antioxidative capacity.