Objective: Chicken essence and branched chain amino acid (BCAA) supplementation has been recognized to significantly relieve fatigue. To obtain chicken essence with high amounts of BCAA, spent hens herein was used to prepare dripped chicken essence (SCE) and compared with commercial dripped chicken essence (CCE) for in vivo anti-fatigue effect.
Methods: To determine the effect on anti-fatigue by dripped chicken essence, the exhaustive swimming was performed. Thirty-two 7-week ICR mice were divided into four groups, which included the control group (CG), CCE, SCE-1X and SCE-2X. The mice were given daily oral administration (0.012 mL/g body weight/d). The fatigue index analysis was conducted weekly.
Results: The results showed that SCE had a higher BCAA level as expected, and mice treated with dripped chicken essence (CCE and SCE) could significantly improve exercise performance. The lower blood lactate level, blood urea nitrogen level and creatine phosphokinase activity were found in the supplement of SCE group compared with the CCE group, which suggested that the SCE possessed strong anti-fatigue ability. This could possibly be due to the higher content of BCAA.
Conclusion: In this study, SCE promoted recovery from physical fatigue in mice and elevated endurance ability. Among them, the double dose (SCE-2X) showed the strongest anti-fatigue ability. Taken together, spent chickens could be a good source of chicken essence to improve the effect of anti-fatigue.
Keywords: Anti-fatigue; Branched Chain Amino Acids; Chicken Essence; Spent Hen.