Discussion

Abstract

For the first time in meetings that I have been to, we have looked beyond the rumen in the cow in our physiopathological appraoch. Nutritionists are now busy devising rumen bypass mechanisms with their feeding regimes. Several patented products on the market are claimed to move on through the rumen to the lower G.I. tract. Our speakers have killed some of the old wives' tales regarding the digestive tract. I am interested in the role of the ecology of the gut flora, on down, as it influences the nutritional uptake of some of these things. We have talked primarily about the wall and the organism but we have not had much research on the interface of the organism and how it lives against the wall and how it influences the physiopathology, particularly as we mass-medicate.