Nutrition, metabolic diseases and immunity in dairy cows

Abstract

In this short review attention is focused on the occurrence of metabolic diseases in combination with disturbances of the immunologic response. Epidemiological surveys in cows suffering from hepatic lipidosis indicate an increased percentage of a specific infectious diseases. Few experiments have been described in which immunoreactivity in cows with spontaneous or induced metabolic diseases were studied. The results reported in these studies indeed strongly suggest impairment of the immune response in metabolic diseases, but do not indicate a causative relationship between metabolism and immunity.