Journal article
Animal welfare and resistance to disease:interactions of affective state and the immune system
- Abstract:
- Good management and improved standards of animal welfare are discussed as important ways of reducing the risk of infection in farm animals without medication. Increasing evidence from both humans and non-human animals suggests that environments that promote well-being over stress and positive over negative emotions can reduce susceptibility to disease and/or lead to milder symptoms. We point out however, that the relationship between welfare, immunity and disease is highly complex and we caution against claiming more than the current evidence shows. The accumulating but sometimes equivocal evidence of close links between brain, gut microbiome, immunity and welfare are discussed in the context of the known links between mental and physical health in humans. This evidence not only provides empirical support for the importance of good welfare as preventative medicine in animals but also indicates a variety of mechanisms by which good welfare can directly influence disease resistance. Finally, we outline what still needs to be done to explore the potential preventative effects of good welfare.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
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- Files:
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(Preview, Version of record, pdf, 205.0KB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.3389/fvets.2022.929805
Authors
- Publisher:
- Frontiers Media
- Journal:
- Frontiers in Veterinary Science More from this journal
- Volume:
- 9
- Article number:
- 929805
- Publication date:
- 2022-06-14
- Acceptance date:
- 2022-05-16
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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2297-1769
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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1262257
- Local pid:
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pubs:1262257
- Deposit date:
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2022-06-03
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- Düpjan and Dawkins
- Copyright date:
- 2022
- Rights statement:
- ©2022 Düpjan and Dawkins. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
- Licence:
- CC Attribution (CC BY)
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