Pigs to help find foods that are good for humans -study

The animals will be fed staples usually consumed by humans as part of investigations into why some foods have health-promoting properties.

The research will be conducted at the University of Queensland's new Centre for Advanced Animal Science at the Gatton campus, west of Brisbane.

Professor Mike Gidley, director of UQ's Centre for Nutrition and Food Sciences, said the pigs would be fed whole cereal grains to determine why they have health benefits.

"If successful, we plan to use the same approach to improve our understanding of why fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet," Prof Gidley said.

The findings would be applicable to humans, he said.

"The digestive tract of pigs is quite similar to that of humans in several respects and this makes them a good model for human digestive processes," Prof Gidley said.

"In particular we look for features that differ between animals who have eaten feeds containing a health-benefiting component and those who have eaten a control feed."

The state-of-the-art rooms at the $33 million Centre for Advanced Animal Science allow environmental control of light and temperature and the monitoring of individual food intake by each pig, which is very important in nutritional studies.