Peculiarities of Enhancing Resistant Starch in Ruminants Using Chemical Methods: Opportunities and Challenges

Abstract

High-producing ruminants are fed high amounts of cereal grains, at the expense of dietary fiber, to meet their high energy demands. Grains consist mainly of starch, which is easily degraded in the rumen by microbial glycosidases, providing energy for rapid growth of rumen microbes and short-chain fatty acids (SCFA) as the main energy source for the host. Yet, low dietary fiber contents and the rapid accumulation of SCFA lead to rumen disorders in cattle. The chemical processing of grains has become increasingly important to confer their starch resistances against rumen microbial glycosidases, hence generating ruminally resistant starch (RRS). In ruminants, unlike monogastric species, the strategy of enhancing resistant starch is useful, not only in lowering the amount of carbohydrate substrates available for digestion in the upper gut sections, but also in enhancing the net hepatic glucose supply, which can be utilized by the host more efficiently than the hepatic gluconeogenesis of SCFA. The use of chemical methods to enhance the RRS of grains and the feeding of RRS face challenges in the practice; therefore, the present article attempts to summarize the most important achievements in the chemical processing methods used to generate RRS, and review advantages and challenges of feeding RRS to ruminants.

Processing barley grain with lactic acid and tannic acid ameliorates rumen microbial fermentation and degradation of dietary fibre in vitro

“…Substantial research efforts have been done over the years to modify starch degradation patterns in the rumen using various feed technological settings . We recently processed barley ( Hordeum vulgare L.), an important crop cereal used in ruminant nutrition worldwide, with various concentrations of lactic (LA) and tannic acid (TA) to modify its chemical composition .…”

“…2 Substantial research efforts have been done over the years to modify starch degradation patterns in the rumen using various feed technological settings. 12 We recently processed barley (Hordeum vulgare L.), an important crop cereal used in ruminant…”

Factors affecting starch utilization in large animal food production system: A review

“…For example, in ruminants a large proportion of starch from feed grains is fermented by microorganisms in the rumen, but a substantial amount of starch can be digested in the small intestine or fermented in the large intestine . Thus dietary starch fractions may be termed by site of digestion as ruminal fermentable starch, ruminal bypass starch, undigestible starch, and ruminally resistant starch (RRS) . Research studies have examined ways to modulate the rumen degradability of starch, aiming to improve ruminant feed efficiency by changing the nature and amount of starch available to rumen microbiota, and/or shifting some starch digestion to the small intestine to improve its energetic efficiency .…”

Effects of dietary starch types on rumen fermentation and blood profile in goats

“…Deckardt et al (2013) concluded that the enhancement of dietary bypass starch promoted more net glucose being transferred from the small intestine to the liver. In the present study, both a heightened insulin level and a diminished glucagon level in the plasma of goats fed the HAS diet in response to an increased glucose supply would accelerate glycogenesis or force body cells to take up glucose from the blood, thus lessening blood glucose.…”