The effect of vitamin C and aspirin supplementation on the performance of turkeys under normal conditions

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate the effect of vitamin C and aspirin on the growth performance of turkeys under normal conditions. For this purpose, 288 male turkeys, BUT6 strain, were used from 1-day-old to 12 weeks of age in nine treatments with four replications and eight birds per replication, as a 3 × 3 factorial experiment [three levels of vitamin C (V; 0, 250, and 500 mg/kg feed), and three levels of aspirin (A; 0, 75, and 150 mg/kg feed)] in a completely randomized design. Our results demonstrated that supplementing with vitamin C and aspirin had no effect on plasma total protein and albumin levels, but the data revealed significant effects on total cholesterol, triglycerides, very low-density lipoprotein (VLDL), and low-density lipoprotein (LDL) levels in the supplemental groups. Also, the interaction of vitamin C and aspirin significantly increased high-density lipoprotein (HDL) and decreased plasma malondialdehyde (MDA) and abdominal fat pad. The results of this study indicated the beneficial effects of vitamin C and aspirin supplements may be related to changes in plasma lipids and body fat under normal conditions.

Keywords:

• Acetylsalicylic acid
• ascorbic acid
• feed additive
• lipids

Acknowledgments

This manuscript was part of a Ph.D. dissertation by the first author presented to Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University, Rasht, Iran. The authors also wish to thank Dr. Hamed Kioumarsi for help.

Ethical approval

All procedures involving animals were in compliance with the European Community Council Directive of 24 November 1986, and ethical approval was granted by the Rasht Branch, Islamic Azad University Ethics Committee (No. 14-10-2018, Rasht, Iran).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

The author(s) reported there is no funding associated with the work featured in this article.