Science explained simply: Lignans

Higher plants produce secondary metabolites for reasons of plant fitness, defense against microbes and as signal compounds to attract pollinators and fruit dispersers. The vast majority of these metabolites originate from five different precursor pathways. Examples are flavonoids, terpenoids, aromatic amino acids, tannins, alkaloids or gallic acid. Also lignans are secondary plant metabolites. 

Approximate numbers of known secondary metabolites from higher plants:

Because a number of positive, health-relevant properties are attributed to lignans. For animal nutrition, the anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects are of particular interest and importance.

Some tree species, e.g. Eucalyptus, Cinnamomum (Zimtbaum), Juniper (Wacholder), Olive, Magnolia or Sassafras (Sassafras albidum) contain specific amounts of different kinds of lignans and neolignans. Some of them have pronounced anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects - this qualifies lignans a valuable tool as performance enhancers!

These lignans help the animal to save energy …

… help the animal in situations of stress of any kind …

… help the animal to maintain natural balance (free radicals - antioxidants / regulation of bacteria).

Lignans are an excellent and cost-effective solution to keep animals in good condition, hence allowing for top performance. Like AGPs, they are not therapy. 

The following graph shows the effect of supplemental wood lignans on broiler performance in various locations. The average improvements in FCR and growth rate are approximately 4% for both parameters. There is a certain level of natural variation well visualized in the dataset. Really outstanding is the consistency of these effects.

Data are derived from scientific and field trials, Values are presented as %-change over Controls. Countries are indicated on the x-axis.

AGROMED^®ROI is a highly cost-efficient solution for application in various species and production conditions. Its inclusion rate ranges between 200 and 400 g/t in poultry. A concentrated version is available, too (dosage: 50 – 100 g/t). In pigs, higher dosages have shown very promising results, too.