Enriching chicken eggs with omega-3 fatty acids for improving human health

Abstract

Layer chickens (180), 18-week-old were divided into 6 groups of 30 birds with 3 replicates and maintained up to 40 weeks of age. To study the effect of different n-3 fatty acids (n-3 FA) rich feed ingredients on n-3 FA content of the yolk, diets (diet- 2 to 4) with n-6: n-3 fatty acid ratio of 5: 1 and diet-5 with the ratio of 2.5: 1 were formulated with bajra (Pennisetum glaucum), linseed, rapeseed and fishmeal, and commercial layer diet (7: 1) as control (diet-1) were fed to birds. Inclusion of n-3 FA rich ingredients at different levels enhanced the n-3 FA content of the layer feeds by 29.83, 95.70, 111.89, 99.09 and 88.62% and decreased the n6: n3 ratio by 42.29, 51.17, 48.55, 60.40 and 58.26% in diets 2 to 6 respectively over the control. The n-3 FA rich diets significantly reduced the serum total cholesterol of layers in diet6 fed group by 36.01% followed by diet 3 (29.95%), diet 4 (25.94%), diet 5 (24.30%) and diet 2 (14.22%) groups when compared to control. Egg yolk total cholesterol was significantly lowered by 27.04% in the diet-6 fed group. The n-3 fatty acids of the egg yolk were increased by 104.40, 80.70, 79.79, 45.25 and 39.99% for the diets- 6, 5, 2, 4 and 3 respectively. The EPA content of egg yolk was not altered to any great extent, however, the DHA content of the egg yolk was significantly altered by the feeding of n-3 FA rich diets especially by diets 5, 6 and 2. The n-3 FA rich diets had little influence on linoleic acid content of egg yolk. The r2 values were 0.897, 0.960, 0.572, 0.972, 0.877 and 0.852 for the diets 1 to 6 respectively, indicating that birds have better transfer efficiency of n-3 FA from feed to eggs. It can be concluded that addition of n-3 FA rich feed ingredients in diet would enrich the n-3 FA in egg yolk.