Dietary folate and vitamin B12 supplementation and consequent vitamin deposition in chicken eggs

Abstract

We determined the effects of dietary supplementation with folate and vitamin B(12) on lipid metabolism and the deposition of these vitamins in eggs of laying hens (age 64-72 weeks). Four levels of folate (0, 0.5, 4 and 10 mg/kg) and three levels of vitamin B(12) (0, 0.01 and 0.08 mg/kg) were added to the basal diet for 8 weeks in a 4 x 3 factorial completely randomized design study. No significant physiological interaction between folate and vitamin B(12) was evident under our experimental conditions. There was no effect of vitamins supplementation on egg production or feed intake. Supplementation with folate significantly elevated serum (p < 0.01) and yolk (p < 0.05) folate levels. Supplementation with vitamin B(12) did not significantly affect serum or egg yolk vitamin B(12) levels. Supplementation with folate or vitamin B(12) did not significantly affect triglyceride or total phospholipid levels in serum or egg yolk although a positive relationship was observed between dietary folate supplementation and total serum phospholipid (r(2) = 0.68, p < 0.05). The study showed that it is possible to produce folate-enriched eggs. An increase in serum total phospholipids due to dietary supplementation with folate may provide physiological benefits to hens, although we did not observe any strong effects of these vitamins on lipid composition.

The adaptive transport of folic acid in the intestine of laying hens with increased supplementation of dietary folic acid

“…In terms of egg folate concentration and indices of folate status, our results were again similar with results from earlier studies (Sherwood et al, 1993;House et al, 2002;Hebert et al, 2005;Roth-Maier and Böhmer, 2007;Bunchasak and Kachana, 2009;Hoey et al, 2009;Dickson et al, 2010;Tactacan et al, 2010). The concentration of folate in eggs from birds supplemented with FA (10 or 100 mg of FA/kg of diet) increase significantly (approximately twice as much) compared with that of birds fed the control diet.…”

“…The concentration of folate in eggs from birds supplemented with FA (10 or 100 mg of FA/kg of diet) increase significantly (approximately twice as much) compared with that of birds fed the control diet. This increase however was similar between 10 or 100 mg of FA/kg of supplemented diets, demonstrating the saturable characteristic of egg folate concentration when dietary FA was increased (Sherwood et al, 1993;House et al, 2002;Hebert et al, 2005;Roth-Maier and Böhmer, 2007;Bunchasak and Kachana, 2009;Hoey et al, 2009). Hebert et al (2005) supplemented as much as 128 mg of FA/kg of the laying hen diet but did not find any significant increase in egg folate concentration beyond the concentration achieved at 4 mg of FA/kg in the diet.…”

“…Earlier studies also found that supplementation of dietary FA at increased levels did not affect the production performance of laying hens (House et al, 2002;Hebert et al, 2005;Roth-Maier and Böhmer, 2007;Bunchasak and Kachana, 2009). House et al (2002) and Hebert et al (2005) noted that it is the lack of demonstrable effects on the production performance of the laying hen which has generally limited the inclusion of FA in layer diets.…”

Egg enrichment with vitamins and trace minerals

“…Another interesting finding of these authors is that egg yolk folate bioavailability is 100% if compared folic acid and that this folate content in enriched eggs is stable during storage at 4 °C for 4 weeks (House et al, 2002). Recent studies also describe a similar egg folate deposition model with significant increases on addition of a small dose of folic acid, which reaches a plateau (Bunchasak and Kachana, 2009;Hoey et al, 2009). In the Bunchasak and Kachana (2009) study, yolk folate content in the hens fed 10.31 mg folate/kg diet was higher by about 40% than that in the hens fed a basal diet (0.31 mg/kg diet).…”

Use of FAO food balance sheets to estimate the potential ability of novel folate-enriched eggs to increase the folate supply in European Union countries

“…These strategies include the development of novel foods enriched with natural folates (12) . Recently, several groups have shown that the folate content of eggs can be increased significantly by supplementing the diet of laying hens with folic acid (43)(44)(45)(46)(47)(48) . Most of the additional folate appears in the eggs in the natural form, mainly as 5-methyltetrahydrofolate (48) .…”