**6. Conclusions**

Recent advances in pet food production have raised the potential of some functional ingredi‐ ents to be useful in preventing and treating disease in pets. Although further work is required to better characterize the long‐term effect of these substances on biological mechanisms, we reported some *in vivo* and *in vitro* examples of the synergic efficacy of selected ingredients, present in some commercially available nutraceutical diets, as a valid and reliable natural approach for the management of some pet diseases. Functional food development can be considered a promising new research area, which surely will be able to improve the health and quality of life of *dogs* and *cats* in the near future. However, great attention should be paid on pet food production and ingredient selection since, without a correct R&D process, diets might shift from the primary source of feeding to primary source of poisoning.
