Wood creosote, an herbal anti-diarrheal and a mixture of major volatile compounds, was tested for its non-toxicological effects, using a rat model, with the objective to use the creosote as an antibiotic substitute. A total of 30 Sprague-Dawley rats were studied to form five groups with 6 rats each. Korea beechwood creosote was supplemented into three test groups with 0.03 g/kg, 0.07 g/kg and 0.1 g/kg body weight/day without antibiotic support, along with a positive control of Apramycin sulphate (at 0.5% of the daily feed) and a negative control. Korean beechwood creosote supplementation showed no negative effect on the body weight gain in comparison to the negative and the positive control groups and the feed conversion ratio was also comparable with that of the control groups. The clinical pathology parameters studied were also under the umbrella of normal range, including liver specific enzymes, blood glucose, total protein, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), which indicated no toxic effect of creosote at the given doses. The non-hepatotoxic effect was also confirmed using hepatic damage specific molecular markers like Tim-p1, Tim-p2 and Tgf-β1. The results suggested that Korean beechwood may be used as antibiotic substitute in weanling pigs feed without any toxic effect on the body. Although the antimicrobial properties of creosote were not absolutely similar to those of apramycin sulphate, they were comparable.
Keywords: Korean beechwood creosote; antibiotic substitute; hepatotoxic markers.