Long Oral Presentation Nutrition Society of Australia 50th Annual Scientific Meeting 2026

Effects of green banana starch supplementation on diabetic conditions of gestating sows (142939)

Fan Liu 1 2 , Kimberley Martin 1 , Taylor Close 1 , Tayla Vanderneut 1 , David Murden 1 , Frank Dunshea 2 3 , Katie McDermott 3
  1. JBS Pork Australia, Corowa, NSW, Australia
  2. School of Agriculture, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC, Australia
  3. Faculty of Biological Sciences, The University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom

Improving neonatal piglet survival is a priority for the pig production industry. Studies have demonstrated that the gestational diabetes of sows is a risk factor for neonatal piglet deaths(1,2). Supplementing resistant starch has been reported to alleviate diabetic conditions in humans(3). Green banana starch is a semi-purified product (contains 53% resistant starch) extracted from unripe green bananas(4). We hypothesised that supplementing sows with 8% green banana starch from day 60 of gestation can mitigate gestational diabetes and improve neonatal piglet survival. Mixed-parity sows from a commercial piggery in Australia were randomly allocated into either a control (n=97) or banana starch (BS) supplemented group (n=92) from the 60th day of gestation until farrowing. The calculated dietary fibre in the wheat and barley-based control diet was 3.1%. The BS diet contained 8% green banana starch, and the calculated dietary fibre was 7.4% when the resistant starch was counted as fibre. Both diets were formulated to contain 13.4 MJ/kg digestible energy, and sows were offered 2.2 kg of diet per sow daily. A group of focal sows (n=39 control and n=29 BS) were enrolled in an oral glucose tolerance test (OGTT). On the 109th day of gestation, sows were fed 3.0 g dextrose per kg of metabolic body weight after fasting overnight. Tail blood glucose concentrations were measured using a glucometer (Accu-Chek ®, Roche Diabetes Care Australia Pty) at -10, 0, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 105, 120 minutes relative to dextrose feeding. The neonatal piglet mortality rate was calculated as the ratio between piglets that died during the first 24 hours and the number of piglets born alive. Data were analysed for the main effect of sow dietary treatment (control vs BS diet) and parity group (SPSS 27th Version, IBM SPSS Statistics, Armonk). Results showed that the BS supplementation did not affect (p = 0.30) body weight gain of gestating sows between 60 and 108 d. Contrary to our hypothesis, BS supplementation tended to increase (p = 0.066) the maximum glucose concentration from 6.0 to 6.6 mM during OGTT in gestating sows. The fasting blood glucose was not affected. The neonatal piglet mortality rate was not affected (p = 0.64) by the BS supplementation (3.8% vs 3.4% for control vs BS group). In conclusion, the supplementation of 8% green banana starch from 60th day of gestation until farrowing did not affect diabetic conditions of gestating sows and it did not improve neonatal piglet survival.

  1. Kemp B, Soede NM, Vesseur P et al. (1996) J Anim Sci 74, 879-885
  2. Liu F, Close T, Jorquera-Chavez M, et al. (2025) Proceedings of the Nutrition Society 84, E27
  3. Xiong K, Wang J, Kang T et al. (2021) Br J Nutr 125, 1260-1269
  4. Shinde T, Perera AP, Vemuri R et al. (2020) Eur J Nutr 59, 3669-3689