Meta-analysis of individual and combined effects of mycotoxins on growing pigs
Published:June 13, 2018
Summary
Introduction Cereals are particularly susceptible to fungal contamination during both the pre- and postharvest stages. Many of these fungi are producers of mycotoxins, which are a chemically diverse group of secondary metabolites with a wide range of toxic effects (Bryden, 2012). The contamination of grain by mycotoxins represents a major concern worldwide in the pig production chain, since th...
I think this is a very helpful contribution to our understanding of mycotoxicoses in pigs. Despite the limitations of this type of meta-analysis, it is very interesting to see the quantitative differences in feed intake and weight gain of pigs comparing individual and multiple co-contaminant challenges. This certainly helps us understand the increased severity of response when pigs are fed naturally-contaminated diets compared to the feeding of an equivalent amount of an individual mycotoxin. This also stresses the challenge in arriving at "safe" levels of feeding individual mycotoxins. Government regulatory guidelines should be changed to take this into account.
Congratulations to the authors of the article.
Regarding your comment, Mr. Trevor Smith,
I totally agree with you: guidelines should take into account the multi-contamination.
Another point is that government guidelines are based on performance but at lower levels we can already see negative effects on animal health.
This is a great way to approach the problems with mycotoxins in swine. There is a clear disparity between levels used in scientific papers and levels commonly found in the field. This paper can help producers to make a more precise decision on managing the risk of mycotoxins.
The combination of mycotoxins is a clear factor and it was greatly discussed in this paper.
Well done to all the authors and looking forward to seeing further materials on this line.
This is an outstanding work...Congratulations to the team. This shows how important it is to conduct an analysis of the raw material before entering the farm.
Its fantastic study indeed. Once again we have a clear sent massage across concerning utmost importance of synergistic effect of combined mycotoxins present in the feeds.