Studies on dietary fiber and nutrient bioavailability have gained an increasing interest in both human and animal nutrition. Questions are increasingly being asked regarding the faith of nutrient components such as proteins, minerals, vitamins, and lipids after feed formulation. The aim of this review is to evaluate the evidence with the perspective of fiber usage in feed formulation. The consumption of dietary fiber may affect the absorption of nutrients in different ways. The physicochemical factors of dietary fiber, such as fermentation, bulking ability, binding ability, viscosity and gel formation, water-holding capacity and solubility affect nutrient absorption. The dietary fiber intake influences the different methods in which nutrients are absorbed. The increase in the total fiber content of the diet may delay the glycemic response. Soluble fiber decreased blood glucose content whereas purified insoluble fiber has a little or no effect on the blood glucose levels after a meal. Dietary fiber and prebiotics influence the host animal well-being by regulating blood glucose or insulin levels, stool bulking effects, increasing the acidity of the gut, constructive synthesis of short chain fatty acids (SCFAs), decreasing intestinal transit time, stimulating the growth of intestinal microbes, and increasing blood parameters. Previous studies suggest that fiber affects the bioavailability of nutrients, and maintains the host wellness.

Astragalus membranaceus is an herbaceous perennial plant, growing to about 2 feet tall, with sprawling stems and alternate leaves about 12–24 leaflets. In total, 24 cross bred (Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire) piglets weaned at 4 weeks with an average body weight of 10.84 ± 1.86 kg, were divided into four groups and randomly assigned to dietary treatments containing different AMSLF levels (0.00%, 2.50%, 5.00%, and 7.50%). The piglets in the control group (0.00% AMSLF ) were fed basal diet and other treatment groups were fed basal diet in addition to 2.50%, 5.00%, and 7.50% pulverized AMSLF . The results indicated that supplementation with AMSLF significantly ( p  <   0.05) decreased diarrheal incidence in piglets. There was significant difference between treatment in terms of ADFI , ADG and FCR . Both 5.00% and 7.50% treatments significantly increased growth performance. The digestibility of gross energy and dry matter increased ( p  >   0.05) with increasing AMSLF level. The level of blood IL ‐2 and TNF ‐α were significantly affected by AMSLF supplementation with 7.50% AMSLF group having higher ( p  <   0.05) IL ‐2 and TNF ‐α levels than the other treatment groups. The 16Sr DNA sequencing results from the four treatments showed that the potentially active bacterial microbial population and diversity in pig cecum were dominated by the phyla Bacteriodetes and Firmicutes regardless of the AMSLF supplementation. The Shannon diversity, PD whole tree diversity indices and Chao analyses exhibited significant variability in species richness across the treatments. The principal coordinates analysis ( PC oA) showed significant ( p  <   0.1) differences between bacterial communities in all treatment groups. Results from the current study suggested that AMSLF supplementation increased composition of bacterial microbiota in pig gut. In conclusion, dietary supplements with AMSLF could potentially be used to prevent diarrheal incidence and improved pig production.

L-Homoarginine (hArg) ((2S)-amino-6-Carbamimidamidohexanoic acid) is a non-essential cationic amino acid that may be synthesised from the lysine catabolism or the transamination of its precursor (Arginine: Arg). These processes involve the use of the ornithine transcarbamoylase (OTC), an enzyme from the urea cycle or the arginine: glycine amidinotransferase (AGAT), an enzyme from the creatine biosynthesis pathway. These enzymes are tissue-specific, hence they synthesised L-hArg in animals and human organs such as the liver, kidneys, brains, and the small intestines. L-hArg plays some important roles in the pathophysiological conditions, endothelial functions, and the energy metabolic processes in different organs. These functions depend on the concentrations of the available L-hArg in the body. These different concentrations of the L-hArg in the body are related to the different disease conditions such as the T2D mellitus, the cardiovascular and the cerebrovascular diseases, the chronic kidney diseases, the intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR) and the preeclampsia (PE) in pregnancy disorders, and even mortality. However, the applications of the L-hArg in both human and animal studies is in its juvenile stage, and the mechanism of action in this vital amino acid is not fully substantiated and requires more research attention. Hence, we review the evidence with the perspective of the L-hArg usage in the monogastric and human nutrition and its related health implications.

BACKGROUND: Pleurotus ostreatus mushroom (POM) is an edible mushroom with rich nutritional components and vital pharmacological properties. The present study comprised 100 cross‐bred piglets, weaned at 28 days old, who were randomly assigned to four POM diets with five replicates per diet and five piglets per pen.RESULTS: POM supplementation (P < 0.05) decreased the incidence of diarrhea, and also increased the average daily feed intake and average daily gain of pigs. Fecal acetate, butyrate and propionate increased with the addition of POM. Interleukin‐2, immunoglobulin G, immunoglobulin M, tumor necrosis factor‐α and immunoglobulin A increased (P < 0.05) with the addition of POM. The 16S rDNA sequencing results showed that the Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were the dominant microbial strains in the fecal samples, irrespective of POM supplementation. Shannon diversity, whole tree phylogenetic diversity, observed species and Chao1 analysis exhibited significant variation in species richness across the treatments. Principal coordinates analysis showed a significant (P < 0.1) increase in the microbial communities amongst all of the treatment groups.CONCLUSION: The results of the present study suggest that the supplementation of POM in the diet of piglets might increase feed consumption, gut microbial composition and diversity, as well as short‐chain fatty acids synthesis, consequently preventing the occurrence of diarrhea and increasing the growth of piglets. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of The Science of Food and Agriculture published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Society of Chemical Industry.

High copper feed has been widely used as an inexpensive and highly effective feed additive to promote growth performance of pigs. However, long‐term feeding of high copper feed may reduce the growth‐promoting effects of copper, time‐dependent accumulation of copper in animal tissues and organs, and copper toxicity thereby reducing the growth performance of pigs. Due to the widespread effects of high copper supplementation in animals' diets, the benefits and drawbacks of high copper feeding in pigs have been reported in several studies. Meanwhile, few of these studies have systematically described the mechanism by which high copper diets restrain pig growth. Therefore, to address the concerns and give a better understanding of the mechanism of high copper diet in restraining pig growth in different systems, this paper reviews the research progress of long‐term supplementation of high copper on the growth of pigs and provides some suggestions and further research directions.

Dietary alfalfa fiber (AF) is conceived to modulate gut microbial richness and diversity to improve the health and growth of weaning piglets. The objective of this study was to evaluate the prebiotic effects of AF on diarrhea incidence, the production of short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs), and microbiota composition in weaning piglets. This study utilized 100 crossbred piglets (Duroc × Landrace × Yorkshire) with a body weight of 8.42 ± 1.88 kg randomly assigned to the following treatments: 0.00% AF meal (A), 6.00% of AF meal (B), 12.00% AF meal (C), and 18.00% AF meal (D). The cecum samples were used to determine microbial community composition and diversity through high-throughput 16S rDNA sequencing. The results of this study show that the lowest average daily gain (ADG) was observed in treatment D, and the highest ADG was recorded in treatment C. However there was no significant difference between the treatment groups and the control. The average daily feed intake (ADFI) was significantly higher in treatment C compared to the other treatments. The feed conversion ratio was high in the control group compared to the AF treated groups. The highest diarrhea incidence was observed in treatment A and the lowest diarrhea incidence was observed in treatment C and D. The highest acetate and propionate levels were observed in treatment B, but there was no significant difference between the treatment groups and the control. The supplementation of AF significantly increased the butyrate level in treatment D compared with treatments A and B but was not significantly different from treatment C. The Observed_species richness and Simpson diversity values of the cecum bacterial composition in the AF fed piglets were higher than the control. In addition, the Chao 1 richness and Shannon diversity increased with an increase in AF supplementation, reaching a plateau at treatment B and C, then decreasing at treatment D. The Bacteroidetes, Firmicutes, Tenericutes, Proteobacteria, Cyanobacteria, Spirochaetae, Actinobacteria, Fibrobacteres, Saccharibacteria, Synergistetes, Chlamydiae, Elusimicrobia, Deferribacteres, Fusobacteria, and others were relatively abundant in all treatments. The Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes were the dominant phyla, accounting for 98% of all reads. AF treatment decreased the Bacteroidetes phylum and increased the Firmicutes phylum compared with treatment A. Therefore, the dietary inclusion of AF may decrease diarrhea incidence, increase cecal bacterial composition and richness, and consequently improve the growth performance of weaning piglets.