WHY DAIRY CALVES SHOULD EAT MORE FISH - ATTENUATING THE INFLAMMATORY RESPONSE OF DAIRY CALVES BY SUPPLEMENTING MILK WITH OMEGA-3 FATTY ACIDS FROM FISHOIL

摘要

The inflammatory response of neonatal calves during septicemia, if excessive or prolonged, can cause severe pathology and consequently death. Dairy calves are extremely susceptible to septicemia during the neonatal period, and consequently death. An over-aggressive inflammatory response during septicemia may be associated with the high mortality of neonatal calves. Replacing omega-6 fatty acids in cellular membranes with omega-3 fatty acids in many animal models attenuated the inflammatory response and increased survival during septicemia. Peripheral blood mononuclear cells (PBMC) from neonatal calves have a large proportion of omega-6 fatty acids in their cellular membrane. Replacing 5 or 10% of the lipid in milk replacer with fish oil fed to neonatal calves increased the proportion of the omega-3 fatty acids, eicosapentaenoic, docosapentaenoic, and docosahexaenoic acids, in the membranes of PBMC. The changes in the fatty acid profile of PBMC membranes of calves supplemented with fish oil were rapid and dose dependent. In addition, supplementing milk replacer with fish oil attenuated the inflammatory response, when calves were subcutaneously challenged with a large dose of lipopolysaccharide to activate the inflammatory response. Furthermore, many of the effects of supplementing fish oil were linear in the range of replacing 5 to 10% of the lipid in the milk replacer with fish oil. Supplementing a high dose of fish oil during the first 2 weeks of life may provide a better balance between a necessary versus an excessive inflammatory response. Future work should determine whether this attenuated inflammatory response affects the pathophysiological response and survival of neonatal calves to gram negative bacteria.