The Potential of Grape Polyphenols Additive in Pig Nutrition: Chemical Structure, Bioavailability and Their Effect on Intestinal Health of Pigs

Andrei Claudiu Proca, Loredana Horodincu, Carmen Solcan and Gheorghe Solcan ()
Additional contact information
Andrei Claudiu Proca: Department of Preclinics, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Iasi University of Life Sciences Ion Ionescu de la Brad, 700490 Iași, Romania
Loredana Horodincu: Department of Preclinics, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Iasi University of Life Sciences Ion Ionescu de la Brad, 700490 Iași, Romania
Carmen Solcan: Department of Preclinics, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Iasi University of Life Sciences Ion Ionescu de la Brad, 700490 Iași, Romania
Gheorghe Solcan: Internal Medicine Unit, Clinics Department, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Iasi University of Life Sciences, Ion Ionescu de la Brad, 700490 Iași, Romania

Agriculture, 2024, vol. 14, issue 7, 1-32

Abstract: The recognition of the necessity for employing natural additives in animal feed has grown alongside the ban on antibiotics in the animal feed sector. Grapes, as well as by-products of the wine-making industry (grape marc and seed extracts), possess biologically active chemical constituents that can be used to improve animal production by incorporating them into animal feed. Grapes are a valuable resource of polyphenols, especially flavonoids, stilbenes and phenolic acids, most of them showing therapeutic or health-promoting properties. The purpose of this review is to elucidate the impact of polyphenols on animal gut health. The first section of the review discusses the chemical structure of the major polyphenols in grapes and the polyphenols’ bioavailability and metabolism in pigs. The second and major part of the review reviews the results of investigations into the antioxidant, antimicrobial and prebiotic effects of grape polyphenols in pig diets, as well as their regulation of intestinal barrier functions through signalling pathways and intestinal responses. All of this is supported by previous research, findings and conclusions. There are fewer recorded pig studies, but the inclusion of up to 9% grape by-products resulted in improved performance with an increased mean daily gain. Ultimately, this analysis concluded that supplementation of pigs with grape phenolic compounds as natural feed additives enhanced their antioxidant capacity, improved humoral and cellular immune responses, and promoted gut ecosystem biodiversity and the overall production performance in pigs.

Keywords: grape by-products; polyphenols; antioxidant; growth performance; pig (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q10 Q11 Q12 Q13 Q14 Q15 Q16 Q17 Q18 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/7/1142/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2077-0472/14/7/1142/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jagris:v:14:y:2024:i:7:p:1142-:d:1435051

Access Statistics for this article

Agriculture is currently edited by Ms. Leda Xuan

More articles in Agriculture from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().