Protection of fatty acids against ruminal biohydrogenation in cattle

Abstract

The increased need for intestinal absorption of unsaturated fatty acids in cattle is driven mainly by nutritional guidelines that promote reduced intake of saturated fatty acids by humans, and by reports of enhanced animal performance (such as reproductive performance) when additional essential fatty acids are supplied. A duodenal flow dataset was compiled from 25 published studies that provided up to 93 observations on fatty acid intakes and ruminal outflows across a multitude of unprotected and protected fat sources. Control diets with no added fat and diets containing unprotected fat sources had similar and predictable ruminal losses of unsaturated fatty acids (86% for linolenic and oleic acids, and 82% for linoleic acids). Rumen protection technologies that have emerged over the years involve either encapsulation of unsaturated fatty acids inside a microbial-resistant shell (such as formaldehyde-treated or lipid encapsulated), or alteration of fatty acid structure (such as calcium salts or fatty amides) to resist action of microbial enzymes. Calcium salts of fatty acids, because they are available commercially, comprised the majority of observations in the duodenal flow dataset. Meta-analysis of the duodenal dataset that included random study effects revealed only a few instances where protected fat sources gave ruminal losses of polyunsaturated fatty acids that were appreciably lower than what was seen for unprotected fats. Future challenges include enhancing protection characteristics of existing rumen-protected fat sources, and development and commercialization of novel protection strategies.

Effects of olive and fish oil Ca soaps in ewe diets on milk fat and muscle and subcutaneous tissue fatty-acid profiles of suckling lambs

“…The high content of trans-11 18:1 in FO milk (7.1%) confirms that calcium soap protection of fat is incomplete (Jenkins and Bridges, 2007;Shingfield et al, 2013). VA accumulation in milk fat reflects the inhibitory action of n-3 PUFAs present in , 2004).…”

The fatty acid profile of muscle and adipose tissue of lambs fed camelina or linseed as oil or seeds

“…To avoid passage through the gastrointestinal tract, undamaged seeds were treated with NaOH since this is a procedure that can be used readily on the farm and Kirkland et al (1998) showed that NaOH treatment of LSs could increase the C18:3n-3 proportion of milk. The efficacy of amides of camelina fatty acids as a ruminal protection strategy was also examined as the potential of this strategy has been demonstrated for soybean (Jenkins and Bridges, 2007). The oil from the camelina seeds had a similar fatty acid composition to that reported by Crowley and Frö hlich (1998), which was expected, as the camelina was grown under similar environmental and agronomic conditions.…”

Effects of short-term oilseed supplementation on plasma fatty acid composition, progesterone and prostaglandin F metabolite in lactating beef cows

“…The challenges associated with extensive biohydrogenation have been addressed by others with the use of ruminally protected fatty acids. Specifically, in their review, Jenkins and Bridges (2007) reported successful protection of fatty acids from biohydrogenation using several methods including prilling, calcium soaps of fatty acids, formaldehyde treatment and fatty acyl amides. Therefore, results could have differed if ruminally protected sources of linoleic and linolenic acid were provided in the diet.…”