THE BENEFITS OF USING ADDITIVES IN FOOD AND HEALTH OF FISH: A DESCRIPTIVE REVIEW

Abstract

Additives are an alternative for disease prevention and performance improvement in aquaculture, being a prophylactic strategy focused on nutrition and which have been tested as immunity stimulants to improve fish performance. Thus, the objective of this work was to verify the state of the art of research that evaluated the benefits of using additives in fish feed as an alternative to antibiotics. For this, a narrative review of the literature was carried out, where the searches took place in the main databases (Scielo and Scopus), in addition to the Google Scholar tool, available digitally, in full format. To scale the research, the keywords used, in different combinations, were: additives; prebiotics; nutrition; pathogens; productive performance; exogenous enzymes; immunostimulants and animal health. Seven articles were selected that suited the research and met the inclusion and exclusion criteria and made up the final sample. The additives used were: probiotics, prebiotics, symbiotics, immunostimulants; amino acids; herbal medicines (turmeric flour) and raw grape extract. Among the main benefits attributed to additives and found in this review, we list: 1) Improvement in zootechnical performance; 2) Increase in hematological and biochemical variables important to fish; 3) Increased immunity; 4) Increase in body composition; 5) Improvement and increase in intestinal histomorphology; 6) Improved feed efficiency; and 7) Positive digestive enzyme responses. The species used were: Betta splendens, Colossoma macropomum, Brycon amazonicus, Pseudoplatystoma reticulatum and Arapaima gigas. New scientific research should be encouraged to prove and validate the action of additives with potential for the production of fish species with important production chains on the national scene.