PIG farmers will soon have a new non-antibiotic treatment based on an extract from pineapple stems to treat diarrhoea in their animals.
Field trials found the treatment reduces the incidence of scour and improves feed conversion ratios from 2.7 to up to 33 per cent when compared with piglets treated with an antibiotic added to their feed.
Brisbane-based company Anatara has developed the medicine - named Detach - using bromelain and will run trials for calves in the near future.
Anatara's chief science officer Dr Tracey Mynott developed the treatment as part of her thesis in the early 1990s, but a series of changes in company ownership saw the product disappear.
"Basically it got put on the shelf and ignored for many, many years, but I believed in it and I mortgaged my house to get it back on the market," Dr Mynott said.
And the time is right with health authorities looking to restrict the use of antibiotics in livestock to combat the rise of superbugs caused by the overuse of antibiotics, and consumers increasingly demanding antibiotic-free food.
Dr Mynott's initial interest in using pineapple stems was not for pig treatment, but for humans.
"Diarrhoea is a major problem in children in developing countries leading to malnutrition and almost one million deaths each year," she said.
Because people cannot be experimented on, pigs were chosen because they are models for humans with very similar systems.
The way these bacteria cause disease is by attaching or sticking to the small intestine, and once they attach they multiply and deliver toxins that cause fluid loss and diarrhoea.
"My PhD supervisor Dr David Chandler, who worked at the Victorian Institute for Animal Sciences, discovered that the attachment sites on the piglet intestine could be altered by using protease enzymes, such that the bacteria could no longer attach, and would then pass through the piglet gut harmlessly.
"I showed that proteases could also be used for preventing human infections as well."
Dr Mynott and her supervisor chose the extract from pineapple stems - bromelain - because it had already been shown to be safe and was in abundant supply.
"We needed something cheap and pineapple was perfect."
The trials showed the treatment worked so well in pigs that Dr Mynott developed it as a means of raising revenue to fund the human path.
"Diarrhoea is one of the most common problems in pig farming causing poor health, death, reduced weight gains and high cost of treatment."
Initial trials in the 1990s found Detach reduced death due to scour, increased the piglets' weight gains and reduced the requirement for antibiotic treatments.
An early publication at the time showed the cost benefit of using Detach was up to a 45 per cent improvement in net revenue per pig.
Because these trials are out of date, new trials are being carried out and the treatment should be available within 18 months.
"I am so excited it is from the humble pineapple, and grown in Queensland," Dr Mynott said.
"The stem is a waste product and just gets ploughed back into the ground. If we can harvest that it will be a great boost for pineapple farmers."
Meanwhile, the money raised from this will fund a human treatment.
"So we are back full circle," Dr Mynott said.
