Ethanol Coproduct Good for Piglets

A research team at the U.S. Department of Agriculture has learned something new about dried distillers grains, an ethanol coproduct. The USDA’s Agricultural Research Service this month reported that feeding dried distiller’s grains (DDGS) to piglets can give their immune systems an extra boost.

The USDA reports:

For their research on piglets, the team divided weanling pigs into four groups and fed them either a standard control diet or diets supplemented with DDGS, soybean hulls or citrus pulp. After one week, the researchers observed an increase in cytokine expression in the pigs’ small intestine, which they linked to DDGS consumption. Cytokines are chemical messengers that are essential for proper immune function. This response reinforced findings of previous DDGS studies showing that pigs consuming diets supplemented with DDGS exhibited reduced levels of ileitis, a common inflammation of the small intestine.