In recent years, the research area of Dr. Jerzy Juśkiewicz (Intitute of Animal Reproduction and Food Research) has been focused on nutritional and functional properties of natural diets as well as diets supplemented with selected components, e.g. low digestible carbohydrates or phenolic compounds. He is interested in the intestinal functioning, especially caecal and colonic metabolism – the main site of bacterial fermentation in humans and monogastric animals - as well as physiological properties of large bowel’s metabolites that may diminish or enhance the risk of associated disturbances. These issues, important from the viewpoint of human needs, are analyzed with the aid of model experiments on rats. Another, similarly important area of studies in which he is involved, conducted in collaboration with scientific team from neighbouring university, are addressed to modification of composition of poultry diets (e.g. by dietary supplementation with prebiotics) in order to promote gut health and birds’ productivity.

Publications:

• Juśkiewicz J., Jankowski J., Zduńczyk Z., Mikulski D., 2006. Performance and gastrointestinal tract metabolism of turkeys fed diets with different contents of fructooligosaccharides. Poultry Sci. 85, 886-891.
• Juśkiewicz, J., Semaskaite A., Zduńczyk Z., Wróblewska M., Gruzauskas R., Juśkiewicz M., 2007. Minor effect of the dietary combination of probiotic Pediococcus acidilactici with fructoolingosaccharides or polysaccharidases on beneficial changes in the cecum of rats. Nutr. Res. 27, 133-139.
• Juśkiewicz J., Ašmanskaitė L., Zduńczyk Z., Matusevičius P., Wróblewska M., Žilinskienė A., 2008. Metabolic response of the gastrointestinal tract and serum parameters of rabbits to diets containing chicory flour rich in inulin Journal of Animal Physiology and Animal Nutrition 92 (2), 113–120.