An immune-modulating diet increases the regulatory T cells and reduces T helper 1 inflammatory response in Leishmaniosis affected dogs treated with standard therapy.

BACKGROUND: Clinical appearance and evolution of Canine Leishmaniosis (CL) are the consequence of complex interactions between the parasite and the genetic and immunological backgrounds. We investigated the effect of an immune-modulating diet in CL. Dogs were treated with anti- Leishmania pharmacological therapy combined with standard diet (SD Group) or with the immune-modulating diet (IMMD Group). CD3+ CD4+ Foxp3+ Regulatory T cells (Treg) and CD3+ CD4+ IFN-γ + T helper 1 (Th1) were analyzed by flow cytometry. RESULTS: All sick dogs showed low platelet number at diagnosis (T0). A platelet increase was observed after six months (T6) SD Group, with still remaining in the normal range at twelve months (T12). IMMD Group showed an increase in platelet number becoming similar to healthy dogs at T6 and T12. An increase of CD4/CD8 ratio was revealed in SD Group after three months (T3), while at T6 and at T12 the values resembled to T0. The increase in CD4/CD8 ratio at T3 was maintained at T6 and T12 in IMMD Group. A reduction in the percentage of Treg of all sick dogs was observed at T0. A recovery of Treg percentage was observed only at T3 in SD Group, while this effect disappeared at T6 and T12. In contrast, Treg percentage became similar to healthy animals in IMDD Group at T3, T6 and T12. Sick dogs showed an increase of Th1 cells at T0 as compared with healthy dogs. We observed the occurrence of a decrease of Th1 cells from T3 to T12 in SD Group, although a trend of increase was observed at T6 and T12. At variance, IMMD Group dogs showed a progressive decrease of Th1 cells, whose levels became similar to healthy controls at T6 and T12. CONCLUSION: The immune-modulating diet appears to regulate the immune response in CL during the standard pharmacological treatment. The presence of nutraceuticals in the diet correlates with the decrease of Th1 cells and with the increase of Treg in sick dogs. Therefore, the administration of the specific dietary supplement improved the clinical response to the standard treatment in a model of CL.

Official food safety audits in large scale retail trades in the time of COVID: system control experiences supported by an innovative approach.

This work describes a new methodology used in large scale retail trades in official food safety auditing processes developed during COVID19 emergency. The aim is to evaluate Food Business Operators' (FBOs) Food Safety Management System and its dynamic implementation and to understand the FBO's level of cultural maturity about food safety according to EU Regulation 2021/382. The innovation mainly consists of: a) a pre-audit phase when auditors analyse food business operator's (FBO) selfchecked plan and further documents to identify "markers" and useful evidences (that would be collected in on-site inspections) to evaluate the application of plan by FBO's workers; b) an audit phase consisted of both a check of the company procedures and documents performed by the auditors via web conference and of contextually onsite inspections in a sample of company's supermarkets performed by inspectors teams. The audit methodology here described may be useful, even though it is expensive in terms of time and energy used, for both Competent Authority (CA) and FBOs, regardless of the period of the COVID emergency. The so-structured official control allows the auditors to collect both documentary and on-site evidence at the same time, reaching a broader vision of auditees (not limited to single supermarkets) and a compliant with reality FBOs risk classification. The new approach may give advantages to both audit actors, CA as well as FBO, who may collect "markers" and evidence of the self-checked plan useful to improve FBO's food safety system on the basis of the critical aspects detected during auditing process.