Abstract：Effects of different DHEA supplemental levels in Arbor Acres broiler feed on lipid metabolism and related hormones were studied in this paper. 180 day-old Arbor Acres broilers were randomly allocated to three groups, each group included three replicates with 20 broilers each. DHEA was not added in the basal feed (control group). The low DHEA and high DHEA treated groups were fed with the basal feed with the supplementation of 5 and 20 mg•kg-1DHEA from 1 to 42 day-old, respectively. Twelve cocks and hens per group were randomly chosen for blood, liver, Abdominal fat, left breast and thigh muscle samples at 42 day-old. The content of blood glucose(BG), triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein- cholesterol (HDL-C), low density lipoprotein-cholesterol (LDL-C),non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) ,T3,T4,FT3,FT4, glucagon , leptin and the activity of LPL were determined. The result showed that the body weight , abdominal fat weight, percentage of abdominal fat weight and triglycerides(TG), total serum cholesterol (TC), high density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), FT3,FT4 were significantly decreased (P＜0.05)and leptin was significantly increased by DHEA in both gender . the content of blood glucose(BG) and LDL-C were not affected by DHEA. The content of NEFA was obviously elevated in the cocks and decreased in the hens (P＜0.05) by DHEA. The activity of LPL and the content of glucagon in serum were significantly enhanced and T4 was significantly decreased in the cocks(P＜0.05)by DHEA. The results implied that DHEA regulated lipid metabolism of broilers by enhancing the enzyme activity and hormone levels related to lipolysis.
