Feed Additives and Immunity Boosting for Chickens – A Review
Abstract
Abstract Feed additives are an alternative to antibiotics to support sustainable poultry production, improving health and productivity, while meeting consumer demand for organic and environmentally-friendly products. Antimicrobial resistance has become a major global concern, which is encouraging the poultry industry to adopt nutritional immunomodulation as a strategy to produce healthy birds without antibiotics. This approach relies on nutritional science to replace antibiotics with immune-boosting feed additives, which is necessary because genetic selection of commercial poultry strains has improved productivity but reduced birds' ability to combat diverse disease challenges. A deeper understanding of immune system physiology can help optimize feed additives to enhance immune function without compromising performance. This review explores the poultry immune system's physiology and mechanisms, followed by an analysis of widely used synthetic feed additives: prebiotics, probiotics, enzymes, betaine, and L-carnitine. Preand probiotics modulate gut microbiota composition, favoring beneficial bacteria that produce short-chain fatty acids and competitively exclude pathogens, indirectly bolstering gut-associated lymphoid tissue development and function. Enzymes, either provided as a single enzyme or combination of enzymes, improve feed digestibility stabilize the intestinal microflora. Two further additives are valuable in boosting cellular immunity: betaine and L-carnitine.…
How strong is the evidence?
Evidence Hub reads this as a review, done in animal, not in people. Its evidence level is 5 of 5 (Very low · case / narrative / animal / in vitro / in silico). Case reports, narrative reviews, and animal, cell or computer-model studies give the weakest evidence for human health.
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