The aim of the study was to investigate the effects of a chicken-meat extract known as Essence of Chicken (EOC) on immune function in a normal and scalded animal model. In this experimental study, 120 rats were randomly allocated into three groups: a SHAM group (inflicted with a sham wound), a BURN group (inflicted with a full-thickness scald wound covering 30 % of total body surface area) and a CONTROL group. Rats in the SHAM and BURN groups were further divided into normal saline (NS)-fed and EOC-fed groups. They were fed by force-feeding with a feeding needle and blood samples were taken from each group on days 1, 8, 15 and 22 postburn. Serum IgG, IgA and IgM concentrations were determined by ELISA and the results of the EOC-fed and NS-fed cohorts of both the SHAM and BURN groups were compared. The level of significance was set at P<0·05. Serum IgG level of both SHAM-EOC and BURN-EOC cohorts showed significant elevation on day 8. IgA exhibited a significant increase in the SHAM-EOC group on day 15 and in the BURN-EOC group on day 22. A significant increase of IgM level was found on days 1 and 22 for the SHAM-EOC group and on day 15 for the BURN-EOC group. Conclusively, EOC was shown to have an enhancing effect on serum Ig levels for both normal and tissue-stressed rats. It is suggested that EOC may help improve immune function when the immune system is at normal status or when it faces a challenge.

The cardiovascular actions of a commercial chicken-meat extract known as Brand's Essence of Chicken (Cerebos Pacific Ltd, Singapore; BEC) were investigated in normo- and hypertensive rats. The spontaneously-hypertensive rat (SHR), Wistar Kyoto rat (WKY) and Sprague Dawley rat (SD) were used. The effect of oral feeding of BEC on hypertension, cardiac hypertrophy and arteriosclerosis in these animals was studied. The data showed the following effects of oral feeding of BEC: (1) feeding for 30 d did not affect the blood pressure and heart rate (determined telemetrically) of adult SHR and WKY; (2) feeding for 90 d did not affect the development of hypertension in 1-month-old prehypertensive SHR; (3) feeding for 4 d dose-dependently (0·2–3·2 ml/kg per d) attenuated cardiac hypertrophy in experimentally-induced (coarctation of the abdominal aorta) cardiac hypertrophic SD; (4) feeding to 1-month-old prehypertensive SHR for 11 months did not affect the age-related development of hypertension in this animal; (5) there was significant attenuation of the age-related development of hypertension (determined by tail-cuff plethysmography) in the WKY (P=0·011) when the animals drank an average of 7·5 ml BEC/kg body weight per d, measured during the last 2 months of the 11-month treatment period; (6) there was chronic, as in the previous treatment, attenuation of the age-related development of cardiac hypertrophy and arteriosclerosis (quantified morphometrically) in the SHR when the animals drank an average of 2·4 ml BEC/kg per d, measured during the last 2 months of the 11-month treatment period. A parallel study using laboratory-prepared chicken-meat and pork extracts showed that the former, but not the latter, attenuated cardiac hypertrophy in experimentally-induced cardiac hypertrophic SD. These findings, showing that chicken-meat extract (both BEC and laboratory prepared) could have anti-cardiac hypertrophic, anti-hypertensive and anti-arteriosclerotic actions, were unexpected and provoking, and would challenge nutritional scientists with an interest in meat consumption and cardiovascular diseases.