Can nutraceuticals control leaky gut in poultry?

Inflammation in the poultry intestine, also known as leaky gut, can negatively impact health, feed conversion and other operational efficiencies.

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David Tadevosian I shutterstock.com
David Tadevosian I shutterstock.com

Inflammation in the poultry intestine, also known as leaky gut, can negatively impact health, feed conversion and other operational efficiencies.

“When there’s inflammation in the intestinal tract, it leads to direct inefficiencies for both water and feed utilization. It sets up a perpetuating cycle regardless of the inciting cause – a continuous loop of inflammation – as the animals develop leaky gut,” explained Billy M. Hargis, professor and director, Tyson Endowed Chair for Sustainable Poultry Health at the University of Arkansas.

In birds with leaky gut, the tight junctions between epithelial cells becomes loose. This allows bacteria and toxins into the submucosa, creating inflammation, which leads to more leaky gut and water loss.

“Water conservation has been the driving goal. It's part of what we do. And you know, it's clear that a sick animal is consuming much more water and excreting much more water and a healthy animal,” Hargis said.

Stress controls poultry gut health

For the past 20 years, Hargis and Guillermo Tellez-Isais, research professor in poultry science at the University of Arkansas, have studied leaky gut and other diseases that cause intestinal inflammation in poultry.

“Inflammation in the gut is caused by stress,” Tellez-Isais said. “This is what we’ve been trying to prevent and trying to increase the gut integrity.”

“How do you turn it off once it starts? And or how do you keep it from starting in the first place? We found some ways and I think we're on the on the cusp of finding some even better ways. But it is a complicated problem,” Hargis added.

Can neutraceuticals help?

Their research has focused on nutraceuticals designed to reduce infections by pathogens and improve poultry gut integrity, including probiotics, prebiotics and organic acids.

“When we started working on this project, I think we were ahead of our time because we were looking for alternatives to antibiotics, particularly in Salmonella,” said Tellez-Isais.

“Most of the nutraceuticals we’ve tested in the past to try to develop alternatives to antibiotics… It turned out that we were also trying to protect gut health, which most of these products also help with somehow.”

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