ZOOTECHNICAL FORMULATIONS COMPRISING BILE ACIDS

Abstract: Zootechnical and veterinary formulations in the form of feed, additive or pre-mix, comprising bile acids, to promote the growth of breeding mammals and for reducing the cholesterol concentration in hens eggs.

Description: ZOOTECHNICAL FORMULATIONS COMPRISING BILE ACIDS The present invention relates to formulations comprising bile acids for the zootechnical-veterinary use. The invention further relates to the use of the formulations of the invention for reducing the cholesterol content in hens eggs and to promote the growth of mammals such as cattle, swine and sheep. TECHNOLOGICAL BACKGROUND The use of antibiotics such as spiramycin, tylosin, virginiamycin, bacitracin and the like as growth promoters (auxinic agents) for livestock has been known for some time, but it is at present subject to increasingly stringent restrictions or even to law prohibitions. In particular, the authorisation of use of said substances has been withdrawn by the European Union on July 1 , 1999, whereas that of two other known growth promoters, carbadox and olaquindox, has been withdrawn on September 1 , 1999. The zoothecnical industry, therefore, calls for said growth promoters to be replaced by safe compounds, which do not remain as undesirable residues in the zootechnical products and guarantee the improvement of both production and feed conversion efficiency with low costs. The zootechnical use of bile acids or of fractions containing them has already been proposed, but only in so far to particular uses. For example, JP 62143647 discloses the use of bile acids to improve the quality of beef, in particular to decrease the fat content. No growth promoting effect is however disclosed. On the other hand, a growth promoting effect is disclosed in JP-A- 55120756 (Miyata T) but only as far as poultry is concerned. It is well known that growth promoters suitable for an animal species can be quite unsuitable for a different species. In particular, the problems involved in chicken-farming are known to be different from those connected with mammal-breeding in general. The use of bile acids in combination with vitamins to increase the content in Vitamin D3 in hen eggs was disclosed in US 5,464,637. Other zootechnical uses of bile acids have been described concerning fish culture (JP 54130393; JP 61172826). DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION It has now been found that the administration of bile acids both exerts a marked growth promoting effect in mammals and allows to reduce the cholesterol content of laying hens eggs. The invention therefore provides in a first aspect, growth promoting zootechnical formulations suitable for the administration to breeding mammals, particularly cattle, sheep and swine. In a second aspect, the invention provides zootechnical formulations comprising bile acids suitable for administration to laying hens for reducing the cholesterol content in eggs. The invention further relates to the respective uses of the above mentioned formulations respectively to promote the growth of animals and to reduce the cholesterol content in eggs. DETAILED DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION Bile acids which are the major component of the formulations of the invention preferably comprise cholic, dehydrocholic, deoxycholic, chenocholic, chenodeoxycholic, ursocholic, ursodeoxycholic, iocholic, iodeoxycholic acids and the non toxic or glycine- or taurine- conjugated salts thereof. In addition to the pure acids, mixtures thereof or extracts containing them can also be used, for example animal bile fractions or extracts, or powder whole bile. Bile acids are formulated into formulations suitable for animal feeding, such as feed, premix, additives, by using conventional techniques. The bile acids content may range from 70 to 98% in the case of additives, whereas it may range around 10 to 30% in the case of a premix. The feed will usually contain additives in amounts from about 2 to about 50 g per 100 kg of feed and premix in amounts ranging from 70 to 150 g per 100 kg of feed. Other components of the formulations can include animal or vegetable meals, amino acids, vitamins, mineral salts, fodder, animal or vegetable fats or other ingredients useful for the concerned zootechnical applications. To promote growth of cattle, swine or sheep, daily amounts of bile acids ranging from 1 to 10 g per animal will usually be sufficient, more particularly about 4 g for a 100 kg weight swine and about 7-8 g for adult cattle daily. In the case of cows, it has furthermore been observed that the administration of bile acids involves a reduction of somatic cells in milk. The administration of a feed containing about 0.01 to 0.2% of bile acids to laying hens, for times of one to nine - ten weeks, induces a reduction of the cholesterol content in egg yolk above 10%. The present invention therefore allows to promote growth, increasing production, improving feed conversion efficiency and therefore production costs, and to qualitatively improve the productions of quality typical products as an alternative to standardization of the productions themselves, decreasing the need for therapeutical interventions with allopathic medicaments. The invention will be described in greater detail in the following Examples. EXAMPLE 1 27.5 g of deoxycholic acid and 2.5 g of cholic acid are added to 100 kg of feed for laying hens having the following percent composition: Formulation A Percentage Maize flour 52.80% Soy extract flour 27.45% Common wheat 3.25% Alfalfa flour 1.00% Cattle and swine fat 3.20% Calcium carbonate 8.50% Hydrogen phosphate 1.60% Molasses 0.50% Laying hens supplement 0.50% Yellow filomix 0.40% Methionine MHA 0.20% Sodium hydrogen carbonate 0.20% L-lysine 0.10% Sodium chloride 0.10% Magnesium oxide 0.10% Biotin 0.10% 100% B. Bile acids Deoxycholic acid 27.5 g per 100 kg of formulation A Cholic acid 2.5 g per 100 kg of formulation A EXAMPLE 2 Bile acids decreasing action on cholesterol concentration in hen eggs. 220 Brown Plus hens were divided in 5 groups; 3 groups were treated with feed having the basic formulation reported in Example 1 , but different percentages of bile acids, as reported in the following Table: a first control group was treated with the same formulation lacking bile acids whereas a second group was treated with lecithin. Yolks were collected after 0, 14, 28 and 42 days of treatment. For each of said times, 7 pool consisting of 6 eggs, for each of the five treatments described above, were collected. The cholesterol content in yolks was evaluated by HPLC. The mean percent values of the cholesterol concentration compared with the blank are reported in the following Table: TABLE Formulation Treatment Time (days) Mean % compared with blank) (*) N.N 3 100 Lecithin 1 99.7 a.p. 0.05% 2 14 99 a.p. 0.10% 4 96.9 a.p. 0.15% 5 94.2 (*) N.N 3 100 Lecithin 1 96.4 a.p. 0.05% 2 28 94.5 a.p. 0.10% 4 91.8 a.p. 0.15% 5 90.1 (*) N.N. 3 100 Lecithin 1 94.9 a.p. 0.05% 2 42 89.8 a.p. 0.10% 4 87.7 a.p. 0.15% 5 85.7 (*) N.N. No treatment. EXAMPLE 3 Swine feed pre-mix Composition Cholic acid 7 σ Deoxycholic acid 4 Chenodeoxycholic acid 2.5 °- Vegetable carrier q.s. to gr 100 Mix 150 g per 100 kg of feed; equivalent to 4 g per one 100 kg body weight swine / day. EXAMPLE 4 Cattle feed pre-mix Deoxycholic acid 25 g Cholic acid 10 g Vegetable carrier q.s. to 100 g Mix 75 g for 100 g of feed; equivalent to 7.5-8 g per adult cattle head daily.

Claims: CLAIMS 1. Zootechnical and veterinary growth promoting formulations for breeding mammals comprising bile acids. 2. Zootechnical and veterinary formulations for reducing the cholesterol content in hens eggs, comprising bile acids. 3. Formulations as claimed in claim 1 or 2 in the form of feed, additive or pre-mix. 4. Formulations as claimed in any one of the above claims comprising pure bile acids or mixtures thereof, or bile fractions or extracts, or whole bile. 5. The use of bile acids as growth promoting feed supplements for breeding mammals. 6. The use of bile acids as feed supplements for laying hens for reducing cholesterol content in eggs.

Inventors: BARTOLI ENZO, PREDIERI VILDER, BARTOLI, ENZO, PREDIERI, VILDER
Applicants: ACME DRUGS S R L, BARTOLI ENZO, ICE S R L, PREDIERI VILDER, ACME DRUGS S.R.L., BARTOLI, ENZO, ICE S.R.L., PREDIERI, VILDER
Application year: 2000
Main classification: A23K1
IPC codes: A23K1, A23L1