LivaltaSun P46: the power of sunflower as highly digestible protein

Why is protein digestibility important? Because digestible protein is available to a dog, cat or horse for muscle protein synthesis, as an energy source, or as a substrate for gut microbiota. Proteins that are slow or even resistant to digestion form a potential loss for the animal. Furthermore, they might cause major changes in bacterial fermentation and leading to the formation of toxic metabolites that can compromise the health and welfare of an animal. We wanted to understand how digestible our sunflower protein LivaltaSun P46 is and compared it to a standard soybean meal.

On average, a dog takes around 8 to 10 hours to digest food. Combined with the fact that food leaves the stomach in just 1.5 hours and the small intestine accounts for 25% of the total digestive tract. This gives the dog very little time to digest protein/ amino acids.

To measure in vitro protein digestion kinetics, samples of LivaltaSun P46 (52.4% Crude Protein/DM) and soybean meal (SBM; 51.4% Crude Protein/DM) were incubated sequentially with pepsin at pH 3.5 for 1.5 h (stomach phase, 0 h measurement) followed by pancreatin and bile extract at pH 6.8 for 0.15, 0.5, 2, 4, or 6 h (small intestine phase). Protein was classified as CPfast, CPslow, and CPresistant corresponding to CP digested within the first 0.5 h, from 0.5 to 4 h, and after 4 h plus undigested CP, respectively.

Figure 1. In vitro ileal protein digestion kinetics of LivaltaSun P46 and Soybean Meal (SBM).

LivaltaSun P46 achieved the same maximum ileal protein digestibility as soybean meal (6 h). However, the rate of digestion between both protein ingredients was significantly different. After 1.5 h incubation at the stomach phase LivaltaSun P46 showed a significantly higher protein digestion compared with SBM (49.2% vs 26.8%, P<0.001). While transition of the ingredient samples into the small intestinal phase led to a steep increase in protein digestion for both products, it can be assumed that digestion in the stomach phase formed the foundation for the significantly higher CPfast of LivaltaSun P46 than SBM (Table 1).

Table 1. Protein classification based on digestion rate.

	Sun P46	SBM
	% of total CP
CPfast	77.50a	65.15b
CPslow	2.41B	11.90A
CPresistant	20.09	22.95

LivaltaSun P46 has significantly more protein digested within the first 30 minutes in the small intestine (13.4% points) than SBM, meaning 23% more amino acids are available for protein synthesis. Furthermore, less protein/ amino acids from LivaltaSun P46 are subject to bacterial fermentation, reducing the risk of adverse effects on animal health and welfare.

As shown by the DIAAS calculation and the protein digestion kinetic evaluation, LivaltaSun P46 is a protein ingredient of superior protein quality that can support the health and welfare of dogs and cats as well as horses.