inflammation development in broilers, their main drawback is that they lack a certain level of realism. Often the Industry questions: What is the relevance of feed restriction or the use of a chemical like dexamethasone with real production? The biggest challenge perhaps so far has been how we define and quantify chronic low-grade gut inflammation. Until now numerous academic attempts aimed at developing models of chronic gut inflammation, a term often intertwined with ‘dysbacteriosis’, ‘dysbiosis’, ‘gut barrier dysfunction’, ‘gut failure’ ‘intestinal permeability’, or simply ‘leaky gut’. “All this has really puzzled us for a number of years when we decided to follow a simple but pioneering approach. We decided to stop reproducing artificially and arbitrarily challenges seen in the real environment and instead, we went inside the real production to study the impact of chronic intestinal inflammation, as you can see in the photo” said Dr Alireza Khadem, Innovad’s R&D Manager. The novel model has resulted in well-defined intestinal dys- bacteriosis and low-level of coccidiosis, time after time at dif- ferent seasons. On one occasion, during the heatwave in the summer of 2020, the birds inside the farm experienced tem- peratures as high as 32°C for ~14 hours/day for more than 8 consecutive days, when at that growth stage the normal barn temperature should be ~ 22-24°C. “This is the advantage of working inside the real production. The novelty of our chronic gut inflammation model is that it accounts for all stress points manifested in real conditions” explained Dr Khadem.
The novel findings Interestingly, it was observed that the level of the resulted dysbacteriosis in other academic approaches has perhaps been un(der)-realistic, when compared to the real production. For the very first time, upon interrogation of a biomarker selection, it was discovered that although both intestinal and systemic oxidative stress may be ‘reduced’ over time, its counterpart (intestinal and systemic) inflammatory and immune responses exert a ‘cumulative impact over time’, which extend well beyond the initial ‘trigger’. “In other words, we discovered that the consequences of an oxidative stress type of ‘trigger’ persist in time and translate in some form of chronic inflammatory and immune ‘activation” said Dr Gougoulias. In fact, the novel findings help explain how intestinal inflammation gets chronified in modern poultry production and thus, results in economic losses.
Developing new solutions The novel findings were fully considered during the evaluation of our precision technology Lumance, which aims not only performance but also gut health optimisation. In a nutshell, Lumance: 1. Alleviated the negative consequences of chronic gut inflammation
2. Improved BW & FCR in a dose response manner ▶ ANTIBIOTIC REDUCTION | DECEMBER 2021 15
3. Accompanied by the statistical reduction of key ‘gut health’ biomarkers related to:
• Gut integrity • Gut and systemic oxidative stress • Gut and systemic inflammation and immune over- activation
“Moreover, our research has identified potential biomarkers in blood and faeces to monitor chronic gut inflammation in chickens. The industry is constantly looking for tools to measure gut health to evaluate performance and decide when and how to use functional in-feed technologies. Ideally, samples should be easy to collect and be minimally invasive, while providing a rapid answer where it is needed – on the farm” Dr Gougoulias explained. Jason Lorjé, Innovad’s Marketing Director, added: “The outcomes of the research will hopefully allow us to develop on-farm diagnostics for the detection of low-grade intestinal inflammation in intensive poultry farming, so stay tuned.”
Highlights •
• • •
Chronic low-grade gut Inflammation in intensive farming is often unseen clinically, but is felt economically as it impairs the birds’ efficiency to reach their genetic potential
This chronic inflammatory ‘activation’ may be linked to increased susceptibility to disorders and disease like necrotic enteritis
AGPs not only have been successful at controlling sub-clinical diseases but also inflammation
The novelty of our chicken chronic gut inflammation model is that it accounts for all stress points manifested in real conditions
• We discovered that the consequences of ‘stress triggers’ persist in time and translate in a chronic inflammatory and immune ‘activation’, which eats up part of the bird’s growth
•
In-feed functional technologies should regulate such chronic inflammato- ry responses and improve gut integrity, like Lumance in this instance
PHOTO: INNOVAD
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