Effect of dietary supplementation of plant based products on oxidative status of weanling piglets

Oxidative stress is highly detrimental to swine health. E. coli infection in weanling piglets is a huge challenge worldwide which causes diarrhea related death of piglets. Antibiotics have been included in weaner diets as an immune modifier and a growth promoter to tackle the situation. Recent concerns for antibiotic resistance have raised the need of finding alternatives for antimicrobials. The present study was carried out to evaluate the effect of dietary supplementation of barks and leaves mixture of a Canadian plant, Red osier dogwoods on oxidative status of E. coli challenged weanling piglets. Twenty eight weaned piglets were assigned to four diets consisting of a corn-wheat and soybean meal based diet (negative control, NC), NC plus 2% dogwoods (ROD2), NC plus 4% dogwoods (ROD4), and NC plus antibiotics (PC). These piglets were orally challenged with enterotoxigenic E. coli (ETEC) K88+. Another group of 4 piglets fed the NC diet was kept in a separate room and served as an unchallenged control (UC). Oxidative stress biomarker malondealdehide (MDA) levels in the ileum and serum of the NC and ROD2 fed piglets were elevated (P < 0.05) and the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity levels in the ileum and serum of these two groups were decreased (P < 0.05) compared to other groups whereas ROD4 and PC groups showed MDA levels and SOD activity levels similar to that of UC. These results suggest that dietary supplementation of this plant material can attenuate oxidative stress in E. coli challenged weaned piglets similar to antibiotics thus showing a potential as an alternative to in-feed antimicrobials.