There’s a burgeoning wine industry in Korea. It doesn’t use grapes but the fruit of Rubus coreanus, the equivalent of the western raspberry. Extracts of the waste products from this process boost the growth of chickens, researchers at Chonbuk National University discovered. The extracts cause an explosive rise in the concentrations of testosterone, growth hormone and melatonin.
There’s a burgeoning wine industry in Korea. It doesn’t use grapes but the fruit of Rubus coreanus, the equivalent of the western raspberry. Extracts of the waste products from this process boost the growth of chickens, researchers at Chonbuk National University discovered. The extracts cause an explosive rise in the concentrations of testosterone, growth hormone and melatonin.
Rubus coreanus contains a number of compounds that Ethnopharmacologists are very interested in. These include quercetin and cyanidin-3-rutoside and ellagitannin, but also nigaichigoside F1 [structural formula 1, in the figure below] and nigaichigoside F2, coreanoside F1 [formula 2] and suavissimoside [3].
There’s a burgeoning wine industry in Korea. It doesn’t use grapes but the fruit of Rubus coreanus, the equivalent of the western raspberry. Extracts of the waste products from this process boost the growth of chickens, researchers at Chonbuk National University discovered. The extracts cause an explosive rise in the concentrations of testosterone, growth hormone and melatonin.
In a 2008 animal study extracts of Rubus coreanus increased the concentration of testosterone in mice by more than a factor seven. So it’s hardly surprising that Rubus coreanus is also found in bodybuilding supplements. It was an ingredient in Anabolic Optimal Dose, the PWO product of Muscle Asylum Project, and in Muscle Tech’s NO booster IntraVol. How much Rubus coreanus these products contained is not known.
In 2009 Korean researchers discovered that chicks grow faster if they are given extracts of Rubus coreanus. [Korean Journal for Food Science of Animal Resources. 2009 Apr. 29(2):168-77.] That’s why the researchers at Chonbuk National University wondered whether they would be able to use dried waste products form the wine industry as a growth enhancer additive for chicken feed. The waste product consisted partly of seeds.
The researchers gave a group of chicken feed containing 0, 0.25, 0.5 and 1 percent Rubus coreanus for a period of 10 weeks. The higher the dose the more the chickens ate and the faster they grew.
Unfortunately the researchers didn’t measure the chickens’ changes in body composition. They did measure the concentration of a number of anabolic hormones, such as growth hormone, IGF-1 and testosterone, in the chickens’ blood. The hormonal effects of Rubus coreanus were quite simply spectacular. In the group that were given the highest dose of Rubus coreanus the testosterone level rose by a factor eleven.
In this same group the concentration of melatonin and growth hormone both rose by a factor 3, and that of IGF-1 by a factor 0.4.
We want to know more about this…
Effect of Rubus coreanus Miquel Byproducts on Performance and Hormone Secretion of Crossbred Chicks
Jae-Hong Park, Y.D. Jeong, M.R. Hassan, C.W. Kang and Kyeong Seon Ryu
Abstract
The present study was undertaken to investigate the feeding Rubus coreanus Miquel byproducts (RCMB) on the performance, blood composition and hormone concentrations of crossbred chicks. Day-old male crossbred chicks (384) were allocated to four RCMB (0, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0%) level in the diets with six replication having 64 chicks in each treatment. Four dietary energy (3,000, 3,100, 3,100 and 3,200 kcal kg-1 ME) and CP (22, 21, 19 and 17%) levels were provided to the starting (0-2 weeks), growing (3-5 weeks), growing-finishing (6-8 weeks) and finishing (9-10 weeks) period. No significant performances were observed during the starting and growing periods but weight gain and feed intake were increased in the growing-finishing and finishing period. Thus the total weight gain and feed intake were significantly higher in RCMB treatment group as compared to those of the control (p<0.05), except feed conversion. Triglycerides were significantly lower in birds fed 1.0% RCMB compared to those in the controls and in the 0.25% RCMB fed birds (p<0.05). Total protein concentrations were not different among the treatments, but albumin concentration was increased in the 1.0% RCMB treatment compared to those of the other treatments (p<0.05). The melatonin, growth hormone and testosterone concentration was increased significantly (p<0.05) in RCMB treatment than that of the control. Therefore, the inoculation of 1% level of RCMB in the diet of crossbred chicks appeared to enhance the performance and hormone secretion. Meanwhile, further follow-up studies should be conducted to investigate RCMB additions of more than 1% in chicken diets.
Source: http://www.scialert.net/abstract/?doi=ajava.2012.970.979
