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Safety of long-term dietary supplementation with l-arginine in pigs

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Abstract

This study was conducted with a swine model to determine the safety of long-term dietary supplementation with l-arginine–HCl or l-arginine free base. Beginning at 30 days of age, pigs were fed a corn- and soybean meal-based diet (31.5 g/kg body weight/day) supplemented with 0, 1.21, 1.81 or 2.42 % l-arginine–HCl (Experiment 1) or with 0, 1, 1.5 or 2 % l-arginine (Experiment 2). The supplemental doses of 0, 1, 1.5, and 2 % l-arginine provided pigs with 0, 315, 473, and 630 mg l-arginine/kg body weight/day, respectively, which were equivalent to 0, 286, 430, and 573 mg l-arginine/kg body weight/day, respectively, in humans. At 121 days of age (91 days after initiation of supplementation), blood samples were obtained from the jugular vein of pigs at 1 and 4 h after feeding for hematological and clinical chemistry tests. Dietary supplementation with l-arginine increased plasma concentrations of arginine, ornithine, proline, albumin and reticulocytes, while reducing plasma concentrations of ammonia, free fatty acids, triglyceride, cholesterol, and neutrophils. l-Arginine supplementation enhanced protein gain and reduced white-fat deposition in the body. Other variables in standard hematology and clinical chemistry tests, serum concentrations of insulin, growth hormone and insulin-like growth factor-I did not differ among all the groups of pigs. These results indicate that dietary supplementation with l-arginine (up to 630 mg/kg body weight/day) is safe in pigs for at least 91 days. Our findings help guide clinical studies to determine the safety of long-term oral administration of l-arginine to humans.

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Abbreviations

Arg:

l-Arginine

HPLC:

High-performance liquid chromatography

NO:

Nitric oxide

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Acknowledgments

This research was supported by a grant from the International Council of Amino Acid Science (Brussels, Belgium). We thank our graduate students and technicians as well as staff at Texas A&M Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory for assistance in this work.

Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Shengdi Hu, Xilong Li, Reza Rezaei & Guoyao Wu

  2. Department of Medical Physiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Cynthia J. Meininger & Guoyao Wu

  3. Department of Internal Medicine, Scott and White Healthcare, Temple, TX, 76508, USA

    Catherine J. McNeal

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  1. Shengdi Hu
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  2. Xilong Li
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Correspondence to Guoyao Wu.

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Hu, S., Li, X., Rezaei, R. et al. Safety of long-term dietary supplementation with l-arginine in pigs. Amino Acids 47, 925–936 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00726-015-1921-5

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