Amino Acid Balancing and Its Role on Metabolism, Inflammation, and Oxidative Stress: Future Molecular Implications

The modern dairy cow has been selected over generations for high milk production, with many successful dairy operations averaging over 13,500 kg of milk per lactation cycle per cow. This amount of nutrient output in the form of milk components puts a tremendous amount of pressure on the metabolism of the dairy cow, especially during early lactation. In fact, it is common to all mammals, including the dairy cow, to undergo marked physiologic and metabolic changes during the transition from pregnancy to lactation. For instance, it has been estimated that in dairy cows the energy and protein requirements can dramatically increase up to 5 times from late pregnancy to lactation (i.e., transition period). Therefore, during the past 3 decades, a substantial amount of research has been conducted to understand how these biological adaptations can predispose dairy cows to negative effects on health and consequently on the lactation performance of transition dairy cows.