Effects of Alfalfa Saponins on Cholesterol Metabolism in Broilers

This experiment was conducted to evaluate the effect of different levels alfalfa saponins on cholesterol metabolism in broilers. A total of 320 Arbor Acres (AA) broilers of 1 day-old were randomly allotted to 4 treatments with five replicates in each treatment, and with 16 broilers in each replicate. The experiment last 49 days. During the stage from 0 to 3 weeks, broilers in the control group were fed basal diet and birds in the test groups were all fed the basal diets added with 0.02% alfalfa saponins. while from 4 to 7 weeks, birds in the test groups were fed the basal diets added with 0.04%, 0.08% and 0.12% alfalfa saponins, respectively. The results showed that: Supplemented 0.08% and 0.12% alfalfa saponins to broilers diets could significantly decrease cholesterol content of serum and liver (P<0.05), increased HDL-C content in serum and bile acids content in feces (P<0.05), highly decreased LDL-C content and HMG-CoAreductase mRNA abundance (P<0.01), implicating alfalfa saponins could block enterohepatic circulation of bile acids, thus supress the synthesis of cholesterol to some extent. 0.08% alfalfa saponins also could significantly reduce insulin content in serum (P<0.05). Added moderate alfalfa saponins to broilers feed could reduce TG content and Hydrocortisone content in serum to a certain extent, effectively improve cholesterol metabolism.