Garlic and Fish Immunity

[leebca]

With reference to this file: http://iodeweb1.vliz.be/odin/bitstre...rlicpaper2.pdf

I obtained a reply from an ornamental fish expert and teaching veterianarian.

The date not present, no indication of it coming form a journel, and spelling errors seem to indicate that the paper is not published and thus, has not been through peer review. In addition, the following,

Based on a quick
read of the abstract, graphs, and conclusions, it looks like there may
be real though not major effects on indicators of nonspecific immune
function that would make it interesting to see what happens under
disease challenge conditions, and in other species. And just as
importantly, it doesn't appear to have had harmful effects, although
there was a trend towards reduced growth rate, which, if it became
statistically significant with a larger sample size, would not endear it
to fish farmers. As for validity in ornamental marine fishes, we have
to extrapolate all the time from studies in one species of fish to other
species, just because of the great diversity of species and the
impossibility of doing the same studies in all of them, but the more
different types of fish species subjected to the same protocols, the
greater confidence we get in the extrapolations. From a practical
perspective, it probably wouldn't hurt, and might help [to run the test with ornamental marine fish], although with any extrapolation of new treatments to different species, it's usually safer to try it out on small numbers first.

It looks hopeful, but it needs to increase in credibility through peer review and publication. Hopefully the authors are putting it through that process.

It would be more meaningful to the aquaculture industry to have a test under a disease challenge.

[kathywithbirds]

hmmm... interesting.

So it resulted in more benefits for three out of the four things tested for in the fish fed with .5 % garlic. How would that translate for us hobbyists, I'm wondering? ... how much garlic would one feed, especially if the fishes' diet varies?

Lee, could you define "respiratory burst"? Is that exhalation?

[leebca]

I'd like to believe. . .

There are some concerns I can't easily get around. Peer review is important in such studies.

Dr. Michael Stoskopf, who wrote Fish Medicine outlined ways to verify immunity. This study doesn't use the strongest methodology, as far as I can tell.

Ideally, we want to know the effect of feeding garlic juice to the fish and its relation to fending off diseases caused by pathogens such as Marine Ich and Marine Velvet. Does this improve the immune response to a specific disease or just increase general defenses?

Colorni et al published a paper on injecting garlic into fish, but the experiment was a bit of a mess. The immune response was measured through titration to disease, but the juice didn't show any definitive affect. Then too, how many hobbyists will be injecting their fish will garlic juice? Then again, the fish were previously immune to the disease he tested against. Like I said, it was a bit of a mess. Not a good/helpful experiment. But its intent was to show the value (if any) of antibiotic and garlic juice injections to food fish populations.

Next comes the question, what part of the garlic (juice?) is the important ingredient? So far there are a few dozen anti-microbial products from crushed garlic. Most of them are time sensitive -- a short shelf life.

Still, I can see no harm in using garlic juice, although too much can cause problems. Encapsulating it into a food product at 1% maximum should be okay.

Respiratory burst is the fast release of oxygen reactive chemicals. In this topic, this release comes from the contact of immune cells with bacteria or fungi. Without getting too technical, it is a means for the immune cells to 'kill' the 'caught' or engulfed bacteria.

A properly nourished marine fish in a proper environment will have no difficulty in handling the 'soup' of bacteria it is exposed to in captive life. But what the immune system does when there is a parasitic or other pathogen attack is of significant importance.