The Development of Functional Food with Plant Extracts for Enhancing Growth Rate

It has been reported that various kinds of chinese herbs have an activity of promote growth rate in both animals and human. To investigate the growth promoting effect of the selected plants, fish and pigs were used as experimental animals. In fish, Eleutherococcus senticosus extract and Artemisia capillasis extract were found to be most effective. And these plant extracts were given to pigs. The result showed that plant extracts-fed pigs were significantly increased their body weight gain at 7.06% of average daily gain, as compared to control. The verify this results, secreted growth hormone (GH)levels and insulin-like growth factor-1 (ICF-1) levels into blood were measured. This result indicated that GH and IGF-1 levels in the blood in plant extracts-fed pigs were higher that those of control. To confirm growth promotion effect on human, we manufactured the mixture of these plant extracts, and coated this mixture onto rice, named as . When we administered to elementary students, it was found to be effective in growth promotion. This result showed that -treated elementary students significantly increased their growth rate (about 2.14 times), as compared to untreated children. Taken together, it is suggested that this functional rice () might be helpful for growing children without any side effects.