ISSUE FOCUS 38 FEED & ADDITIVE MAGAZINE December 2024 formulated with Benicaros. The first step has been conducting fermentation studies using feral samples from healthy pets (dogs) to evaluate the efficacy of Benicaros. We know that your precision prebiotic Benicaros was first introduced in 2021 to support human immunity. During your trials for the product, which findings made you consider going into the pet health industry? Preclinical and clinical studies show that Benicaros delivers consistent gut and immune health benefits across diverse microbiota profiles. We conducted a 10-week randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study with 146 healthy adults. Participants consumed either a placebo (0 mg/day), low-dose (300 mg/day), or high-dose (1500 mg/ day) of Benicaros for 8 weeks, after which they were exposed to a mild rhinovirus challenge. Immune responses were monitored over the 2 weeks following infection, and a validated questionnaire was used to score symptom severity and duration as well as quality-of-life. The results demonstrated that Benicaros supplementation: • Increased the relative abundance of beneficial bacterial species, including Bifidobacterium spp. (B. longum and B. adolescentis), as well as anti-inflammatory species (F. prausnitzii, A. hallii, R. hominis), independent of varying baseline gut microbiota compositions. • Reduced cold symptom severity (20-33%) and duration (28-43%) compared with the control group. Symptoms included runny nose, sore throat, cough and feeling tired. • Accelerated the cascade of protective immune responses in the presence of an airway infection,
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