July 24, 2013

 

 

Danisco Animal Nutrition hosted a seminar in Bangkok, Thailand, on the benefits of using natural betaine - a trimethyl derivative of the amino acid glycine which naturally occurs in relatively large quantities in aquatic invertebrates and sugar beet - to increase carcass lean deposition and reduces the threat of heat stress and disease by improving metabolic functions.

 

Speakers included Danisco Animal Nutrition's Development and Technical Director, Dr Gary Partridge, Prof Frank Dunshea from the Department of Agriculture and Food Systems at The University of Melbourne and Dr Pierre Cronje, R & D Consultant and Editor.

 

Dr Partridge spoke of Danisco Animal Nutrition's betaine product, Betafin^® being unique in that it comprises a completely natural, pure form extracted from sustainable sugar beet molasses and vinasses (fermented molasses) using a patented chromatographic separation process.

 

The assembled speakers went on to discuss how this natural form of betaine has long been known for its ability to offer significant performance benefits to commercial animal production operation, including protection from osmotic disturbances associated with certain stresses (e.g. coccidiosis and heat stress) and reduction of the energy costs of maintaining water and ion balance.

 

Natural betaine's dipolar structure was outlined; this structure allows it to form hydrogen bonds with water, which explain its high solubility and its ability to help cells hold water. Dr Partridge mentioned that human and mammalian kidney cells preferentially store betaine because of the high osmotic stress to which they are subjected in producing urine.

 

Prof Dunshea's presentation centred on research that demonstrates how natural betaine can reduce the maintenance energy requirement of farmed livestock through positive effects on osmoregulation.  During periods of physiological stress, betaine can be used to spare maintenance energy, leaving more metabolic energy for productive purposes, such as carcass lean gain (assuming there is also sufficient amino acid supply to fuel this lean gain.)

 

Natural betaine contains three methyl groups that can be donated as part of the trans-methylation cycle, an essential process in an animal's metabolism. Both choline chloride and methionine, routinely added to animal feeds, can also function as methyl donors but natural betaine is the most biologically efficient way of supplying these methyl groups. Choline chloride, for example, has to be converted to betaine first before becoming a methyl donor, so its relative bio-efficacy for methylation is consequently lower than betaine.

 

In addition, discussion at the seminar focussed on the relative merits of natural betaine versus other chemically synthesised betaine products that claim similar bio-efficacy, such as betaine hydrochloride (HCl).

 

Dr Partridge highlighted recent studies at Massey University, New Zealand, where broilers under controlled heat stress showed a significant improvement in bodyweight corrected feed conversion ratio (FCRc, 6.6%) with Betafin® natural betaine supplementation, compared with birds offered synthetic anhydrous betaine or betaine HCl. These alternative products only showed numerical improvements in FCRc (2-3%) compared with the heat stressed control.

 

Similarly, in a broiler coccidiosis challenge model run at the same university, birds offered diets containing natural betaine gave significant improvements in ileal amino acid and energy digestibility of a greater order of magnitude than those offered synthetic anhydrous betaine or betaine HCl. The net effect was that natural betaine delivered over US$13 per tonne of feed more value than the alternative products. These studies clearly illustrated that natural betaine can offer greater net value in use than either of the synthetic betaine products, particularly for birds under typical production stresses.

 

 

Dr Partridge also drew attention to new studies at the Kantvik Active Nutrition laboratories in Finland using an in vitro intestinal cell model. These studies showed that betaine HCl negatively influenced the gut barrier and reduced the ATP content of cells as compared to natural betaine. Weak cellular tight junctions between gut epithelial cells can lead to movement of antigens across the gut barrier to provoke a damaging and energetically costly inflammatory response.

 

There was a further discussion about how the addition of natural betaine to broiler diets can lead to improvements in the tensile strength of the gut and enhanced water retention/absorption. This increased resilience can have positive effects on gut structure and on the animal's immune system, to help protect it from specific disease challenges.

 

Increased gut tensile strength also helps to minimise intestinal breakage and the likelihood of digesta spillage onto the carcass during processing at the slaughterhouse when the gut is removed. This has potential food safety implications. A stronger gut could reduce the likelihood of contamination of the carcass by zoonotic organisms (e.g. Campylobacter and Salmonella) which cause food poisoning in humans.

 

Dr Partridge cited work conducted at Colorado Quality Research, USA, which showed that dietary Betafin^® significantly increased gut tensile strength in coccidia-challenged birds. This effect is further supported by work done on coccidia-challenged  broilers at the PARC Institute, USA, where it was shown that coccidial lesion scores at 21 days were reduced when natural betaine was supplemented to diets containing varying levels of the coccidiostat salinomycin. Similar positive effects on FCR were observed.

 

In an exciting vision of the future, Dr Cronje also drew attention in his presentation to the recently published links between natural betaine, AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) and tumour necrosis factor alpha (TNF-a). TNF-a plays a key role in triggering fatty liver disease and activation of AMPK can reduce circulating levels of TNF-a. Recently published studies have shown the potential of betaine to activate AMPK, thereby reducing the negative effects of TNF-a.

 

"This finding has profound implications for the treatment of a wide range of metabolic conditions such as fatty liver in broilers, haemorrhagic fatty liver syndrome in layers, ascites in broilers and heat stress" Dr Cronje said.

 

The conference concluded with Dr. Partridge's summary of the many benefits that natural betaine can deliver to the Asian producers today, centring on reduced animal production costs and improved performance.