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Optimal gut health is of vital importance to the performance of production animals. Gut health is synonymous in animal production industries with animal health. Although there does appear to be a direct relationship between animal performance and a “healthy” gastrointestinal tract (GIT), there is no clear definition for “gut health” that encompasses a number of physiological and functional features, including nutrient digestion and absorption, host metabolism and energy generation, a stable microbiome, mucus layer development, barrier function, and mucosal immune responses (1–8). The GIT is responsible for regulating physiological homeostasis that provides the host the ability to withstand infectious and non-infectious stressors (9–19). Understanding the interactions between these diverse physiological features emphasizes the extent of areas encompassed by gut health and the ability to regulate animal production. For our part, we will define gut health as the absence/prevention/avoidance of disease so that the animal is able to perform its physiological functions in order to withstand exogenous and endogenous stressors. Furthermore, worldwide public concerns about the production animal industries’ dependency on the use of growth-promoting antibiotics (AGPs) have resulted in the ban of AGPs by the European Union and a reassessment of their use in the United States. Thus, current research is focused on alternatives to antibiotics for sustainable food animal production (20).

A recent Research Topic in Frontiers in Veterinary Infectious Diseases was on gut health and wondering whether we should consider gut health as the new standard …