ISSUE FOCUS FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE October 2023 23 ardship. Currently, several dietary measures are taken to promote animal health in poultry production. Among these, an emerging group being included in holistic approaches that shows promise in improving gut health and host defense is postbiotics. WHAT ARE POSTBIOTICS? According to the International Scientific Association of Probiotics and Prebiotics (ISAPP), postbiotics are defined as, “a preparation of inanimate microorganisms and/or their components that confer a health benefit on the host”. Postbiotics are the output of a controlled fermentation which can contain various biologically active substances such as proteins, small peptides, oligosaccharides, vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and other undefined metabolites (Figure 2). Fermentation is a complex process where the output can vary based on the microorganisms, substrate, and environmental conditions involved in the process. So, an in depth understanding of the process is necessary to ensure the consistent composition and benefits from the product. The advantages of postbiotics over pre- and probiotics are that postbiotics have little dependency on further in vivo utilization of the product to have an effect on the host. Additionally, a postbiotic can maintain stability across industrial feed processing and long-term storage, making it more available to the animal. Moreover, a postbiotic product with nothing filtered out or isolated can be quite intricate, which makes it unique from single or few-compound feed additives. BENEFITS OF POSTBIOTIC IN POULTRY GUT HEALTH Several postbiotic products are used in different animals, including humans, because of their potential benefits such as anti-inflammatory, antibacterial, immunomodulatory, anticarcinogenic, antioxidant, antihypertensive, antiproliferative, and hypocholesterolemic properties. Among these postbiotic products, the Saccharomyces cerevisiae fermentation product (SCFP) is a major category used in livestock, including poultry. Scientific studies have reported that dietary inclusion of SCFP resulted in improved body weight, feed conversion ratio, and meat yield in broilers and turkeys, and improved egg weight, yolk weight, and hatchability in layers/breeders. One of the modes of action of SCFP is through modulating immunity, especially by Figure 1. Gut Health and Associated Factors Figure 2. ISAPP Postbiotic Consensus Definition
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