Functional Foods in Pets and Humans

The role of functional foods in pet diet with a perspective link with human nutrition is the object of our study. Veterinary pet trials clearly indicated that functional foods provide health benefits when administered on a regular basis with adequate active principles in the context of a well balanced diet. Our work hypothesis is that domestic animals might be a suitable model to validate, in some human diseases, a specific food mediated approach for disease prevention and treatment, engaging the whole gut reactivity (ie, enteric hormones, chalones, cytokines, immune gastrointestinal system, lymph flow, and neurotransmitters) to rebalance the health endogenous environment. Objective: We evaluated and analyzed the role of functional foods in pet diet in order to extend the link of food consumption in