Study on Effect of Feeding Extruded Soybean Food on Reproductive Hormone Profile in Pet Dogs

As the key vegetable protein commodity, soybean and its products are becoming more important as dietary raw materials for human being and his faithful companions. Soybeans naturally abundant in isoflavone compound that are reported to possess weak biochemical activity, including estrogenic, anti-estrogenic, and hypocholesterolemic effects, in mammalian species. Soybeans contain three types of isoflavones; daidzein, genistein, and glycitein in four isomeric forms. These compounds have been implicated for adversely affecting reproduction in animals fed diets containing large amounts of soybean meal^1,2. There is wide spread belief that isoflavones are not antinutrients and genistein and related phytoestrogens work as chemo-preventive agents³ for a variety of human diseases and cancers based on epidemiological evidence of reduced cancer rates in populations with a high intake of soy. Processing of soybean seeds and its products also significantly affects the retention and distribution of isoflavone isomers in the final products⁴. Extrusion cooking has been shown to be effective method to reduce the antinutritional factors^5,6,7. To assess the effect of Soybean, which is extruded, the present study was focused on using the extruded soyabean in pet food formulations and evaluating the reproductive safety of dogs. In this food interaction study, the mean average of 353g/day/dog of pet food was fed to six dogs for 52 weeks. During feeding programme dogs maintained normal health and weight. It was demonstrated that feeding of Soya enriched pet food did not influence the main sex hormones in serum of the dogs. Experimental results revealed that Pet food containing extruded soybean did not influence the serum progesterone, estrogen and testosterone levels. The main hormone levels are found to be in normal range as discussed by Foster & Smith, Inc⁸ and Hase M. et.al⁹

Extruded soybean, Petfood, Dogs, Reproductive, Hormone