Poultry, Fisheries & Wildlife Sciences
Open Access

Abstract

Modulation of Stress in Coho Salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch, using Feed Supplemented with Capsaicin

Paul McCain, Parveen Quarrar and Ahmed Mustafa

In this study properties of the nutraceutical capsaicin were assessed in order to determine the effects on several stress bio-markers in teleost fish. Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch, were fed a diet supplemented with capsaicin for 8 weeks, and a thermal stressor was used in order to ascertain capsaicin’s ability to modulate said stress in comparison with control animals. Biomarkers; plasma cortisol, blood glucose, spleen somatic index, packed cell volume, plasma protein, condition factor, and macrophage phagocytic activity were assessed bi-weekly during the trial. The results of ANOVA comparison indicated that capsaicin produced no statistically significant differences between fish receiving the capsaicin and those which did not. A cluster based analysis using WEKA data mining software confirmed the findings that at 0.02% of the diet, capsaicin produced no statistically significant differences.