Wood
creosote, an herbal anti-diarrheal and a mixture of major volatile compounds, was tested for its non-toxicological effects, using a rat model, with the objective to use the
creosote as an
antibiotic substitute. A total of 30 Sprague-Dawley rats were studied to form five groups with 6 rats each. Korea
beechwood creosote was supplemented into three test groups with 0.03 g/kg, 0.07 g/kg and 0.1 g/kg
body weight/day without
antibiotic support, along with a positive control of
Apramycin sulphate (at 0.5% of the daily feed) and a negative control. Korean
beechwood creosote supplementation showed no negative effect on the
body weight gain in comparison to the negative and the positive control groups and the feed conversion ratio was also comparable with that of the control groups. The clinical pathology parameters studied were also under the umbrella of normal range, including liver specific
enzymes,
blood glucose, total
protein, blood urea nitrogen (BUN), which indicated no toxic effect of
creosote at the given doses. The non-hepatotoxic effect was also confirmed using hepatic damage specific molecular markers like Tim-p1, Tim-p2 and Tgf-β1. The results suggested that Korean beechwood may be used as
antibiotic substitute in weanling pigs feed without any toxic effect on the body. Although the antimicrobial properties of
creosote were not absolutely similar to those of
apramycin sulphate, they were comparable.