Interpretive Summary: The role of gut permeability in livestock

By: James L Klotz, David L Harmon

Implications

• Gut permeability is a balancing act as the tissues that line the digestive tract act as both barrier and filter.
• Systemic consequences of disequilibrium of the factors that influence gut permeability require greater study as to their impact on livestock productivity and welfare.

Introduction

The gastrointestinal tract has long been understood as the primary site for both nutrient absorption and a barrier to protect from the entry of foreign substances into the circulatory system. With the declining use of antibiotics in livestock feed there has been an increasing focus on “gut health” to enhance overall health and well-being via dietary and other means to optimize animal production and welfare. This interest in optimizing the gastrointestinal environment and function has not been limited to livestock as there is a growing interest in these phenomenon in human medicine for their role in numerous disorders such as celiac disease, inflammatory bowel disease and chronic alcohol and metabolic liver disease as well as numerous other maladies (Vanuytsel et al., 2021).

The concept that the gut is not an impervious barrier, yet allowing only nutrients to penetrate has led to many studies seeking to quantify this phenomenon and to better understand the role of gut permeability in livestock (Bertens et al., 2024) and poultry (Gilani et al., 2021).

Read the full article in Animal Frontiers: The Role of Gut Permeability in Livestock.