Dados do Trabalho

Título

Influence of breast myopathies on poultry meat quality attributes: a meta-analysis

Introdução

The poultry industry has experienced expansion in recent years. Genetic selection has accelerated this growth, leading to broilers reaching a live market weight much faster. However, this rapid growth has caused breast muscle myopathies. Despite the growing body of knowledge on the subject, there are gaps in our understanding of the influences of certain factors, such as myopathy type and bird strain, on meat quality. A meta-analysis is an essential tool that allows researchers to draw conclusions not apparent in individual studies and estimate net aggregated values of the meat quality attributes. Therefore, this meta-analytic study evaluated the influence of myopathies on three quality attributes: pH, cooking loss, and shear force.

Material e Métodos

The literature search was conducted using the words: "meat quality" AND (myopathy OR "wooden breast" OR "deep pectoral myopathy" OR "white striping" OR "spaghetti meat") AND (poultry OR chicken OR broiler OR turkey OR hens OR bird OR goose OR fowl OR rooster) in title and abstract in Scopus, Web of Science, and Pubmed databases. Meta-analysis was conducted using the R package metafor. Two researchers independently searched the literature using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. The effect size adopted for each quality attribute was the unstandardized mean difference between groups. I2 statistic was computed to evaluate the effect sizes' heterogeneity across studies. Bias was assessed through funnel plot and Egger's test.

Resultados e Discussão

The literature search retrieved 357 documents, and 18 articles met the eligibility criteria. Meta-analysis revealed that breast myopathy causes an average increase of 0.08 in the poultry meat pH, with results more intense in Ross and Arbor broilers than in Nicholas turkeys. Breast myopathy also increases poultry meat cooking loss by approximately 2%, with the results depending on both the birds' strain and the myopathy type. Concerning the shear force, the analysis did not detect any apparent changes in the samples affected in relation to the unaffected samples.

Conclusão

The study demonstrated that the covariates affect most quality attributes and should be considered when studying poultry meat myopathy. It also verified the subject's relevance since most studies are from 2019 to the present.