The translational power of the piglet model has resulted in studies that have demonstrated the protective effects of probiotics (Good et al., 2014), colostrum (Sangild et al., 2006), breast milk (Jensen et al., 2013) and glucagon-like peptide 2, a gastrointestinal peptide with 1/3 sequence homology to glucagon (Benight et al., 2013), and have confirmed the importance of T-cell mucosal immunity (Anttila et al., 2003), reactive oxygen species (Koivusalo et al., 2002) and microvasculature disruption (Van Haver et al., 2008) in NEC. Here, GCG is linked to necrotizing enterocolitis.