Key insights from monogastric meta-analyses on YCWE
Yeast cell wall extract (YCWE) has been shown to effectively mitigate mycotoxin impacts on animal health and performance. Recent meta-analyses from Alltech highlight its role in improving productivity, sustainability and profitability across species.
MYCOTOXINS 2025: Utilising technology to detect & mitigate – read all articles
Despite efforts by the agricultural industry to reduce mycotoxins in the feed supply chain, these toxic compounds remain widespread in feedstuffs globally. Fungi naturally produce mycotoxins under certain environmental conditions, whether during pre-harvest, post-harvest, or ingredient and feed storage. Mycotoxins in feed can negatively affect animal health, performance, farm productivity, and profitability.
Mitigation strategies may include testing and rejecting contaminated ingredients, but a proactive approach is more effective, preventing problems before they can take hold. This may involve the use of mycotoxin adsorbents like yeast cell wall extract (YCWE).
The meta-analysis results
Many studies have demonstrated YCWE’s benefits across animal species, but drawing conclusions from extensive research is challenging. A meta-analysis, which pools data from multiple studies, helps provide clearer answers, generating a statistical overview of mycotoxin impacts and YCWE’s effectiveness.
Three recent meta-analyses have focused on mycotoxin risk and YCWE mitigation in broilers, laying hens and growing pigs. These studies span 56 trials, 79 mycotoxin treatments, 99 YCWE treatments, and 15,246 animals, offering comprehensive insights into mycotoxin management.
When looking at the mycotoxin challenge alone, each meta-analysis shows that mycotoxins can have significant negative effects on animal performance and health. In particular, lower growth rates and poor feed conversion rates were observed in the studies, along with compromised health and lower egg production when mycotoxins were consumed. These effects were noted even when mycotoxins were consumed by the animals at lower concentrations, including below regulatory guideline limits (Figure 1).
Figure 1 – Improvement in egg production and quality for hens fed yeast cell wall extract** during mycotoxin challenge versus feeding mycotoxins alone.
The most recent meta-analysis revealed that layers fed mycotoxins experienced lower body weight, decreased egg production and reduced egg weight compared to control-fed birds. However, birds supplemented with YCWE during mycotoxin challenges showed significant improvements in performance, with increased egg production and egg weight. Through greater egg production and weight, total output per hen increases, enhancing profitability. In fact, this meta-analysis indicated that YCWE inclusion offered a 4.65:1 return on investment (ROI) when used during mycotoxin challenges.
To the researchers’ knowledge, this is the first time a meta-analysis has been conducted with laying hens to evaluate the influence not only of mycotoxins alone, but also of a mycotoxin mitigation strategy, on key performance parameters. These findings underscore the importance of addressing mycotoxin challenges in layer production and highlight the potential role of YCWE in doing so.
Other impacts of YCWE
Other themes that could be seen in the full set of meta-analyses when YCWE was included during the mycotoxin challenges were:
- Performance. When YCWE was included, the data showed a collective improvement in performance indices. Improvements in average daily gain and feed conversion were noted for growing animals, while an increase in egg production and egg weight was shown for laying hens.
- Livability. The impact of YCWE on broiler chickens exposed to mycotoxins was assessed. Research indicated that the inclusion of YCWE supported improved bird resilience and overall welfare under these conditions.
- Sustainability. To understand whether mycotoxins and YCWE play a role in the sustainability of production, the CO2 equivalent (CO2-eq) was calculated for broilers using results from the meta-analysis. This showed that while a mycotoxin-contaminated diet increased carbon footprint over control-fed animals by an estimated 47 tonnes CO2-eq, the use of YCWE lowered this by an estimated 25 tonnes compared to feeding mycotoxins alone. This is equivalent to a savings of 30 round-trip transatlantic flights (New York to London), or the annual usage of 17 cars in the United Kingdom (Figure 2).
Figure 2 – Carbon footprint impact of mycotoxin-contaminated diets and the mitigating effect of YCWE supplementation in broiler production.
It is clear from these findings that efforts to minimise the risk of mycotoxins are crucial to supporting animal health and performance. As such, proactive measures should be introduced to better understand and control mycotoxin risk. A proper mycotoxin management programme should include:
- Testing, to determine the current mycotoxin risk
- Risk assessment, to better understand the mycotoxin challenge level and the potential outcomes of mycotoxin consumption
- Mitigation, to reduce the challenge to the animal
- Monitoring, to continue assessing the mycotoxin challenge over time
Empowering informed decisions
Mycotoxin contamination in animal feed remains a significant challenge, requiring effective management to protect animal health, productivity and profitability. Recent meta-analyses on broilers, laying hens and growing pigs demonstrate the efficacy of mycotoxin mitigation strategies such as YCWE inclusion.
These studies reveal mycotoxins’ adverse effects on growth, feed efficiency, egg production and mortality, even at low concentrations. They also show promising results with YCWE, including performance improvements and the enhancement of sustainability by lowering carbon footprint. With an ROI of 4.65:1 in laying hens, YCWE offers clear economic benefits.
This research supports YCWE as a practical solution for mitigating mycotoxin impacts, empowering informed decisions to enhance animal welfare, productivity and sustainability.
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