Poultry meat is considered one of the most popular sources of animal protein with a high nutritional value and healthy ingredients for the people of the whole world due to its biological importance in cell regeneration and maintaining human health. The poultry industry is one of the important elements in a country to fulfill animal protein demand, and have made their efforts to contribute to their development by increasing production and health efficiency and eliminating problems that are exposed to them, including oxidative stress stimulated by heat stress often found in Indonesia as a tropical country. Oxidative stress is one of the most important reasons that stimulate a decrease in growth performance, deterioration of immunity, and high mortality rate. Therefore, the free radical formation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) must be reduced.
Under high ambient temperature conditions, ROS generation increases in various body tissues as the heat load elevates. Oxidative reactions also could be increased by heat stress, which then affects the meat quality by affecting meat color, ultimate pH, meat tenderness, and water-holding capacity. Recent research and studies have tended to find solutions and alternatives to reduce the oxidative stress effect by using natural additives such as carotenoids in poultry diets as an alternative. Carotenoids from Xanthophyllomyces dendrorhous have been used in the poultry industry for many years to pigment eggs and meat. Astaxanthin (AST) is one of a group of natural pigments known as xanthophyll carotenoids, which exhibit a wide variety of biological activities.
Astaxanthin (AST) has a wide range of applications in the food, feed, cosmetics, aquaculture, nutraceutical, and pharmaceutical industries due to its free radical scavenging capacity. With the known antioxidant activities, AST from Haematococcus pluvialis also might be used to protect animals from heat-stress-mediated oxidative insults. In addition, studies have shown that AST from freeze-dried Phaffia yeast also has several other biological activities, including anticancer, anti-inflammatory, and antidiabetic effects.
Author: Herinda Pertiwi, drh.
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