A pet’s healthy tummy can boost their body’s immunity
As a furry-kid parent, you give them food, water, exercise and endless love. For their immunity, you vaccinate them, or choose foods containing antioxidants, vitamins and minerals to maintain their resistance and a healthy body. But have you ever thought about how your beloved pet’s digestive system affects their immunity?
The digestive system generally refers collectively to the digestion, absorption and excretion of food; however, research shows that the digestive system plays a major role in a pet’s immune health.
The immune system is a complex network of cells, tissues and organs that work together in a continuous process, enabling the pet’s body to tell the immune system what is happening. In a pet’s digestive system, part of this communication network is the immune system communicating with bacteria or the microbiome. The term “gut microbiome” refers to the hundreds of millions of microorganisms living in the intestines. While some microorganisms are harmful to our pets’ health, many are very beneficial to a healthy body — even essential.
Scientific research has found that a pet’s microbiome and digestive-system bacteria can affect almost every aspect of a pet’s overall health, including their immunity. By supporting your pet’s digestive system, you can help them boost their own resistance.
So how do a pet’s immune and digestive systems work together? 70% of a pet’s immune cells are located in its digestive system. The immune system is responsible for protecting your beloved pet from infection. The digestive system is the “control tower” of a pet’s immune system.
The pet immune system – the relationship between the microbiome and pet health
Because the microbiome is closely linked to the immune system, a pet’s gut bacteria can help keep them healthy, as a well-formed immune system can keep potential diseases in check. Under normal conditions, the immune system promotes the growth of beneficial microorganisms and helps maintain a stable microbiome; in return, a healthy microbiome produces molecular signals that support the development of immune cells and help fine-tune immune responses. In other words, the microbiome plays a direct role in stimulating and supporting the immune system, while the immune system plays an important role in supporting a healthy microbiome balance.
When the microbiome suffers an imbalance or a state of dysbiosis, the number of bad bacteria increases, and the communication network from the microbiome triggers the immune system in different ways, which may make our pets more susceptible to pathogenic infections and to chronic diseases caused by excessive inflammation.
A healthy digestive system strengthens resistance
What we choose to feed our pets plays an important role in keeping them healthy. Premium digestive foods, such as the Wellness CORE® Digestive Health range, include key nutrients that support the digestive system and the microbiome. By adding dietary fibre and prebiotics, good nutrition can give the cells of the digestive tract’s gut wall extra energy, making them healthier. A healthy gut wall can guard against harmful toxins or bacteria and prevent these toxins from attaching to or passing through the gut wall. If bad bacteria are allowed through the gut-wall barrier and are detected by the immune system, your pet may react, leading to more inflammation in the body.
How do you keep your pet’s immune system strong?
Look for a complete and balanced dog or cat food recipe that contains the following ingredients, to ensure your pet gets the highest-quality digestive-health nutrition, optimises their microbiome, and supports their resistance and health:
The food should contain:
•High-quality animal protein and whole grains, to optimise nutrient absorption and support high digestibility
•Dietary fibre, such as beet pulp fibre, which helps promote gut-wall health
•Prebiotics such as FOS and MOS, which support the growth of beneficial bacteria
•Probiotics, or so-called extra “good” bacteria, which help balance the microbiome
The Wellness CORE® Digestive Health range is highly digestible, supports a healthy microbiome and immunity, promotes a glossy coat and healthy skin, and boosts vitality for optimal energy, helping pets achieve whole-body health. The Wellness CORE® Digestive Health range is scientifically crafted by a team of nutrition experts to support digestive health and fuel a pet’s best life.
Wellness CORE® Digestive Health cat food and dog food have a probiotic coating and contain wholesome grains, with no added wheat, corn, soy or artificial colours, flavours or preservatives. The highly digestible kibble has an outer coating containing probiotics, applied to the outside of the food, made from digestive enzymes and a unique blend of prebiotic fibres to support digestive health and promote wellbeing. The dog food comes in a whitefish formula and a tender chicken formula to choose from.
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