Original title: Dietary Inclusion of 10% Fresh Chicory Alters Cecal Microbiota and Muscle Metabolite Profiles and Increases Intramuscular Fat in Diqing Tibetan Pigs
Researchers fed one group of growing pigs a diet with 10% fresh chicory and compared it with a control group. The chicory-fed pigs had different gut microbes and different small molecules in their muscles. Their muscle fat content was higher, while growth performance was not compromised. The microbial and muscle changes were linked by correlations, which show an association but do not prove that one caused the other.
Imagine changing one ingredient in a pig’s daily feed and then checking both its gut and its meat. The tricky part is that changes in the gut and changes in the muscle can appear together without showing which caused which. In this paper, the feed change is the chicory, the gut changes are shifts in microbes, and the muscle changes include more fat within the muscle.
Pig farmers need feed ingredients that support growth while affecting meat quality. In this study, adding fresh chicory was associated with more fat within the pigs’ muscles, while growth performance was not compromised. The results support testing chicory further as pig feed.
The results show associations, not proof that chicory or particular gut microbes caused the muscle changes. The proposed link to altered triglyceride metabolism is exploratory. The abstract supports further evaluation of fresh chicory, but does not establish its effects beyond the studied pigs and diet.
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Dietary Inclusion of 10% Fresh Chicory Alters Cecal Microbiota and Muscle Metabolite Profiles and Increases Intramuscular Fat in Diqing Tibetan Pigs — Shihao Li, Lixing Wang, Hete Huang et al. — Agriculture — doi:10.3390/agriculture16192170
Abstract licence: CC BY
Explanation generated by Synthesis from the abstract — it is not the original paper.