What is Chicken Essence? Health Benefits and Side Effects

What is Chicken Essence? Health Benefits and Side Effects

What is chicken essence?

Chicken essence is a liquid nutritional supplement made from chicken extract, a concentrated liquid made from boiled chicken, bones, and sometimes herbs or spices.

Chicken essence is also used as a health supplement in Asian countries such as China and Singapore. It is believed to have a variety of health benefits, such as increasing energy levels, boosting immunity, and promoting overall health. Chicken essence is often sold as a supplement or health drink, sometimes packaged in vials or sachets for easy consumption.

Health benefits

Elderly health

Studies have shown that chicken essence can reduce knee osteoarthritis pain and improve muscle strength in the elderly [1]. It can also enhance or maintain brain function in the elderly [2].

Anti-fatigue

Mouse studies show that dripped chicken essence can improve exercise performance . Supplementing dripped chicken essence can reduce the concentrations of blood lactic acid, blood urea nitrogen and creatine phosphokinase. This suggests that dripped chicken essence has effective anti-fatigue properties, possibly due to its higher branched-chain amino acid content. In particular, spent chickens are used as a source of chicken essence (hens are said to be "spent" at the end of their laying cycle) [3].

Blood sugar management

Studies have shown that chicken essence has an inhibitory effect on the increase in blood sugar levels and has a secretory-stimulating effect on insulin. Drinking chicken essence with rice can improve pancreatic function and insulin response, and may prevent Asians with low insulin secretion from developing diabetes [4]. 

Research showed that chicken essence may reduce the glycemic response of bread and other starchy staple foods [5].

Brain health

ProBeptigen®/CMI-168 (PB), a novel hydrolyzed chicken extract, shows beneficial effects on cognitive performance, according to mouse studies. PB improved age-related learning and memory decline and reduced oxidative stress and inflammation in the hippocampus. PB has neuroprotective effects, and its mechanism may be different from chicken essence [6].

A large-scale article meta-analysis evaluated and concluded that daily consumption of chicken essence can improve mental processing aspects of cognitive function in healthy people [7].

Anti-fatigue

Ammonia, lactate, serum creatine kinase (CK), and blood urea nitrogen (BUN) are biochemical variables related to fatigue. Studies have shown that chicken essence significantly improves endurance and grip strength and has beneficial effects on lactate production and clearance following acute exercise challenges. It can significantly reduce the BUN and CK index after long-term exercise, and increase the glycogen content, muscle and liver superoxide dismutase, liver catalase (hepatic catalase/CAT) and glutathione in the liver and muscle tissue. (glutathione/GSH) levels[8] . Other studies have shown that combining Ganoderma lucidum with chicken essence can enhance the effect [9].

Improve circadian rhythm

Disrupting circadian rhythms can harm health and increase the risk of metabolic syndrome, cardiovascular events, and cancer. Different studies have shown that chicken essence has an enhancing effect on circadian clock function [10] [11] [12] [13] .

Weight management

Research shows that the combined thermogenic effects of capsaicin, green tea extract, and chicken essence can translate into positive clinical effects, significantly increasing resting energy expenditure and reducing body weight after 2 weeks of supplementation and regulating excess fat with this natural health supplement fat [14] .

Improve mental stress

Clinical trials have shown the role of chicken essence in improving working memory in healthy adults and short-term memory in healthy adults who experience stress in daily life [15].

Side effect

There are cases showing that chicken essence may cause premature puberty in boys . After a boy ate food with a large amount of chicken essence seasoning every day for 6 months, his estradiol and testosterone concentrations increased significantly. A type of plant sterol (C29H48O) was detected in chicken essence seasoning. After avoiding chicken essence seasoning, the patient's sex hormone concentration decreased [16] .

The difference between chicken essence and dripped chicken essence

Chicken essence and dripped chicken essence are both extracted from the nutritional essence of the whole chicken. The chicken essence is boiled, filtered to remove oil, and vacuum concentrated. The dripped chicken essence does not use water when heating, and the collected liquid is filtered to remove oil and is not further concentrated.

references

[1] Chen, C., Chang, S., Chang, C. H., Hu, C., Nakao, Y., Yong, S. M., Mandy, Y. L. O., Lim, C. J., Shim, E. K., & Shih, H. (2023). Randomized, double-blind, four-arm pilot study on the effects of chicken essence and type II collagen hydrolysate on joint, bone, and muscle functions. Nutrition Journal, 22(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12937-023-00837-w

[2] Konagai, C., Watanabe, H., Abe, K., Tsuruoka, N., & Koga, Y. (2013). Effects of essence of chicken on cognitive brain Function: A Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Study. Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Biochemistry, 77(1), 178–181. https://doi.org/10.1271/bbb.120706

[3] Chang, T., Chen, W., Huang, C., Lin, L., Lin, J., & Cheng, F. (2023). Anti-fatigue activity of dripped spent hens chicken essence in ICR mice. Animal Bioscience, 36(2), 307–314. https://doi.org/10.5713/ab.22.0172

[4] Fujimoto, K., Fujii, K., Kanamori, T., Murai, K., Tomura, T., Tsutsumi, R., Teramoto, T., Nonaka, Y., Sakaue, H., Matsuo, Y., & Murayama, N. (2022). Randomized, double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate the effects of chicken hot water extract on insulin secretion. DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 26(7), 2422–2430. https://doi.org/10.26355/eurrev_202204_28476

[5] Sun, L., Tan, K. W. J., & Henry, C. J. (2015). Co-ingestion of essence of chicken to moderate glycaemic response of bread. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 66(8), 931–935. https://doi.org/10.3109/09637486.2015.1088822

[6] Ni, Y., Ni, L., Ma, L., Wang, Z., Zhao, Y., Hu, L., Zheng, L., & Fu, Z. (2021). Neuroprotective effects of ProBeptigen/CMI-168 on aging-induced cognitive decline and neuroinflammation in mice: a comparison with essence of chicken. Acta Biochimica Et Biophysica Sinica, 53(4), 419–429. https://doi.org/10.1093/abbs/gmab009

[7] Toh, D. W. K., Wong, C. H., Fam, J., & Kim, J. E. (2019). Daily consumption of essence of chicken improves cognitive function: a systematically searched meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials. Nutritional Neuroscience, 24(3), 236–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/1028415x.2019.1619984

[8] Huang, S. W., Hsu, Y. J., Lee, M. C., Li, H. S., Yeo, P. C. W., Lim, A. L., & Huang, C. (2018). In vitro and in vivo functional characterization of essence of chicken as an ergogenic aid. Nutrients, 10(12), 1943. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10121943

[9] Li, H. S., Chen, Y., Hsu, Y. J., Wu, M., Chiu, C. C., Tung, Y. T., Tsai, W., Huang, W. C., & Huang, C. (2018). Effects of Ganoderma lucidum and ‘Essence of Chicken’ on Physical Fatigue Recovery and Exercise Performance Improvement. PubMed, 61(6), 372–383. https://doi.org/10.4077/cjp.2018.bah646

[10] Dilixiati, A., Koyanagi, S., Naoki, K., Matsumoto, N., & Ohdo, S. (2017). Dietary supplementation with essence of chicken enhances daily oscillations in plasma glucocorticoid levels and behavioral adaptation to the phase-shifted environmental light–dark cycle in mice. Journal of Pharmacological Sciences, 134(4), 211–217. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jphs.2017.07.004

[11] Xu, C., & Sim, M. (1997). Effect of oral feeding of essence of chicken on the level of 5-Hydroxyindoie acetic acid in the cerebrospinal fluid of the rat. International Journal of Food Sciences and Nutrition, 48(2), 113–117. https://doi.org/10.3109/09637489709006970

[12] Wu, T., Yao, C., Tsang, F., Huang, L., Zhang, W., Jiang, J., Mao, Y., Shao, Y., Kong, B., Singh, P. P., & Fu, Z. (2015). Facilitated physiological adaptation to prolonged circadian disruption through dietary supplementation with essence of chicken. Chronobiology International, 32(10), 1458–1468. https://doi.org/10.3109/07420528.2015.1105252

[13] Wu T, Watanabe H, Hong LK, Abe K, Ni Y, Fu Z. Effect of BRAND's essence of chicken on the resetting process of circadian clocks in rats subjected to experimental jet lag. Mol Biol Rep. 2011 Mar;38(3):1533-40. doi: 10.1007/s11033-010-0261-5. Epub 2010 Sep 12. PMID: 20835889.

[14] Tsi, D., Nah, A. K. H., Kiso, Y., Moritani, T., & Ono, H. (2003). Clinical study on the combined effect of capsaicin, green tea extract and essence of chicken on body fat content in human subjects. Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology, 49(6), 437–441. https://doi.org/10.3177/jnsv.49.437

[15] Suttiwan, P., Yuktanandana, P., & Ngamake, S. T. (2018). Effectiveness of essence of chicken on cognitive function improvement: a randomized controlled clinical trial. Nutrients, 10(7), 845. https://doi.org/10.3390/nu10070845

 

[16] Fujimoto, K., Fujii, K., Kanamori, T., Murai, K., Tomura, T., Tsutsumi, R., Teramoto, T., Nonaka, Y., Sakaue, H., Matsuo, Y., & Murayama, N. (2022). Randomized, double-blind, crossover, placebo-controlled clinical trial to evaluate the effects of chicken hot water extract on insulin secretion. DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals), 26(7), 2422–2430. https://doi.org/10.26355/eurrev_202204_28476

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