The concern for the swine industry is that antibiotic usage, particularly sub-therapeutic use, is contributing, directly or indirectly, to antibiotic resistance in human medicine. One of the issues with antibiotic usage is that it has a nutritional benefit other than combating specific pathogens and any alternative to antibiotic usage has to take these other effects into account. The common theory is that intestinal bacteria, whether harmful or not, depress animal growth, either directly or indirectly, through their metabolic activities. Perhaps the best support of this hypothesis is the observation that oral antibiotics do not enhance growth in germfree animals, while inoculating germfree animals with gastro-intestinal (GI) bacteria depresses growth. A clear difference between germfree and conventional animals is a thinner wall of the small intestine. The rate of renewal of the cells that line the GI tract is slower in germfree animals, which may have a beneficial effect on base energy expenditure and the efficiency of nutrient utilization. These observations are consistent with the view that in rapidly growing young animals, the GI tract and skeletal muscle draw from the same limited supply of nutrients and, in effect, compete for nutrients. Antibiotics do not simply act on microorganisms but may be involved in immune system function as well. Phagocytes (cells of the immune system that \u201ceat\u201d pathogens) are a major component of the immune system. These cells are involved in both host defenses and various pathological settings characterized by excessive inflammation. Accordingly, they are key targets for immuno-modulatory drugs, among which antibacterial agents are promising candidates. In addition the microbiota of the digestive tract has a direct impact on host immune cells. Alternatives to antibiotics MUST ultimately focus on the gut microbiota of the pig gut. These alternatives included prebiotics, probiotics, dietary acids, various fractions of the grain and oil seed processing industry, as well as vaccination. Each of these topics will be dealt with in detail in a future article.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The concern for the swine industry is that antibiotic usage, particularly sub-therapeutic use, is contributing, directly or indirectly, to antibiotic resistance in human medicine. One of the issues with antibiotic usage is that it has a nutritional benefit other than combating specific pathogens and any alternative to antibiotic usage has to take these other effects […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[930],"tags":[1809,8882,2096,20005,640,3694,1456,341,19644,577,1287,23694,286,527,27278,316,20007,158,3005,6577,5851,371,10859,265,79,967,22808,14,16262,4651,4652,6721,14790,4167,35,3768,16004,20911,4874,1579,24994],"class_list":["post-4147","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-production","tag-acid","tag-al","tag-alternative","tag-alternatives-to-antibiotics","tag-animal","tag-antibiotic","tag-antibiotics","tag-bacteria","tag-dd","tag-diet","tag-diets","tag-dir","tag-dust","tag-efficiency","tag-energy","tag-gas","tag-gh","tag-growth","tag-host","tag-immune","tag-immune-system","tag-microorganisms","tag-nat","tag-nutrients","tag-nutrition","tag-pathogens","tag-pic","tag-pig","tag-pl","tag-prebiotic","tag-probiotic","tag-probiotics","tag-rene","tag-resistance","tag-swine","tag-swine-diets","tag-swine-industry","tag-t","tag-tan","tag-test","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prairieswine.com\/rsc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}