Disease outbreak is a major challenge in aquaculture, and it is well known that using antibiotics leads to drug bioaccumulation in fish and the development of antibiotic resistant bacterial strains. Antibiotic-resistant bacteria and their antimicrobial resistance genes can spread from aquatic to terrestrial animal husbandry to human environments, causing detrimental effects on human, animal, and aquatic ecosystem health.

Increasing the intake of prebiotics may boost the number of good bacteria in the gut and has the potential to promote digestibility of nutrients, support the immune system, improve mineral absorption and affect energy, and amino acid balance of the pig. However, the term "prebiotic"  rarely appears on product labels, so it may be difficult to determine whether they are present in a product. Instead, producers should look for the actual names of the prebiotics, such as galacto-oligosaccharides, fructo-oligosaccharides, oligofructose, chicory fiber or inulin in the products of interest.