Functional foods provide health benefits if they are consumed on a regular basis as part of a varied diet. Functional foods modify gastrointestinal physiology, promote changes in biochemical parameters, improve brain functions and may reduce or minimise the risk of developing specific pathologies. The role of functional foods has been investigated in dogs and cats in order to better understand their metabolism, thus optimising companion animal nutritional and health status. Although we have to keep in mind that diets are different between cats and dogs. Cats have a diet consisting of 52% protein, 36% fat and 12% carbohydrate. Therefore, we have to study pet nutrition considering dogs and cats separately. Many researchers have done so over the last decades. A review of some of these studies is presented here. Examples of functional pet food ingredients are fruits and vegetables, botanicals, whole grains, glucosamine and prebiotics and probiotics. Some of these functional foods are high in fibre components and aimed to modify the intestinal microflora or increase in satiety. But functional foods are also added to supply essential amino acids and micronutrients such as magnesium, manganese and B vitamins and bioactive molecules, all of which have strong antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. Amino acids are often added as dietary supplement, because during pet food heat processing, the bioavailability of essential amino acids such as lysine can be reduced. Several studies focused on the role of functional foods in dog nutrition. For instance, in adult male beagles, oligofructose-enriched diet decreased faecal ammonia and Clostridium perfringens concentrations, while total aerobes increased, thus ameliorating the overall dog health. Fructooligosaccharides (FOS) were used alone or in combination with mannan-oligosaccharide in dogs fed on a meat based diet. Dogs showed greater ideal immunoglobulin A concentration, whereas they displayed lower faecal total indole and phenol concentrations, if compared with untreated controls. A further study tested a 6 month maintenance diet (FOS as well as corn, fish meal, processed proteins of chicken, poultry fat, beet pulp, yeast, fish oil, minerals, dried yeast (Bio mannan-oligosaccharides), Yucca schidigera, Vitamin A, D3 and E, choline chloride, copper chelate of amino acids hydrate, DL-methionine, taurine, L-carnitine and tocopherols, Grifola frondosa, Curcuma longa, Carica papaya, Punica granatum, Aloe vera, Polygonum L., Haematococcus pluvialis, Solanum licopersicum, and Vitis vinifera) on oxidative stress markers. It was shown that this diet restored oxidative balance, hence supporting the idea that an adequate diet may be crucial to achieve a good oxidative balance in dogs. Pet food palatability has also been object of study since this feature is of key importance in terms of suitability and safety. A study from 2004 looked at the palatability of a dry canine diet and its effect on digestion of stabilised rice bran by determining faecal characteristics food intake, selected immune mediators and blood lipid characteristic. In the first experiment, the authors compared the palatability of four diets containing poultry fat (test diet 1) or soybean oil (test diet 2) combined with either 12% stabilised (test diet 3) of defatted rice bran (test diet 4) which were fed to 20 dogs for 4 days. Food intake improved in dogs fed on Test diet 1 combined with 12% stabilised rice bran.

Our journal of Scientific Journal of Veterinary Advances is great platform for the all the researchers who are in the field of veterinary including pathology, microbiology, parasitology, physiology, pharmacology, veterinary medicine.

You can submit your related manuscript to the https://www.sjournals.org/scientific-journal-of-veterinary-advances.html for publication in any type of research work as original papers, review article, and short communication.