High dietary protein can potentially increase susceptibility of weaned pigs to enteric pathogens; it has been hypothesized that dietary supplementation with functional amino acids may improve growth performance of pigs during disease challenge. A recent study, published in the Journal of Animal Science, aimed to determine whether supplementation of functional amino acids would improve growth performance and immune status of Salmonella-challenged weaned pigs and whether the effect of functional amino acids is dependent on dietary protein content. Growth performance, body temperature, fecal score, acute-phase proteins, oxidant/antioxidant balance, Salmonella Typhimurium shedding score in feces and intestinal colonization, fecal and digesta myeloperoxidase, and plasma urea nitrogen were measured pre- and post inoculation.
