{"id":91933,"date":"2022-03-02T07:52:42","date_gmt":"2022-03-02T06:52:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ew-nutrition.com\/?p=91933"},"modified":"2025-07-21T11:57:41","modified_gmt":"2025-07-21T09:57:41","slug":"toxin-solutions-mycotoxin-interactions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ew-nutrition.com\/en-uk\/toxin-solutions-mycotoxin-interactions\/","title":{"rendered":"Mycotoxin interactions amplify damages – What are the right solutions?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Technical Team, EW Nutrition<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

Contamination with multiple mycotoxins is the rule for animal feeds, rather than the exception. Trial data shows that producers can prevent negative effects on animal health and performance by using high-performing toxin binders.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Animal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Multiple mycotoxins<\/strong> contaminate animal feed \u2013 problems and solutions<\/h1>\n

Mycotoxins pose an exceptional challenge for feed and animal producers. Generated by common molds, they occur in a great variety and numbers. Difficult to diagnose, mycotoxicosis in farm animals shows in a range of acute and chronic symptoms: decreased performance, feed refusal, poor feed conversion, reduced body weight gain, immune suppression, reproductive disorders, and residues in animal food products.<\/p>\n

Regulatory mycotoxin thresholds don\u2019t account for interactions<\/h3>\n

Regulatory thresholds for permissible mycotoxin levels in feed are derived from toxicological data on the effects of exposure of a certain species, at a certain production stage, to a single mycotoxin. This makes practical sense: while aflatoxins are carcinogens, fumonisins attack the pulmonary system in swine, for example. Mycotoxins also affect poultry in a different way than cattle, and broilers in a different way than breeders or laying hens, to mention more cases.<\/p>\n

The problem is that, in reality, individual mycotoxin challenges are the exception. Animal diets are usually contaminated by multiple mycotoxins at the same time (Monbaliu et al., 2010; Pierron et al., 2016). Since 2014, EW Nutrition has conducted more than 50,000 mycotoxin tests on both raw material and finished feeds samples, across the globe. 85% of these samples were contaminated with more than one mycotoxin and one third positive for four or more mycotoxins.<\/p>\n

How does contamination with multiple mycotoxins occur in animal feed?<\/h3>\n

The concurrent appearance of mycotoxins in feed can be explained as follows: each mold species has the capacity to produce several mycotoxins simultaneously. Each species, in turn, may infest several raw materials, leaving behind one or more toxic residue. In the end, a complete diet is made up of various raw materials with individual mycotoxin loads, resulting in a multitude of toxic challenges for the animals.<\/p>\n

If animals were exposed to only one mycotoxin at a time, following the regulatory guidelines on maximum challenge levels would usually be enough to keep them safe. However, several studies have shown that the effects of exposure to multiple mycotoxins can differ greatly from the effects observed in animals exposed to a single mycotoxin (Alassane-Kpembi et al., 2015 & 2017). The simultaneous presence of mycotoxins may be more toxic than one would predict based on the known effects of the individual mycotoxins involved. This is because mycotoxins interact with each other. The interactions can be classified into three main different categories:\u00a0antagonistic, additive,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0synergistic<\/em>\u00a0 (Grenier and Oswald, 2011).<\/p>\n

Types of mycotoxin interactions<\/h3>\n