Tag: Dog Aging Project

10,000 Pets Wanted for the Dog Aging Project Pack

There’s an old saying that the only bad thing about dogs is that they don’t live long enough. But dogs (and humans) may one day be able to live longer — and your very own dog could help make that happen.

The largest-ever study in canine aging was launched this week by the Dog Aging Project, an effort “to understand how genes, lifestyle, and environment influence aging,” according to its website, for the purpose of helping pets as well as people enjoy longer lives. The project is a joint effort of the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences.

The participants in this groundbreaking study will be 10,000 dogs. They won’t be laboratory dogs, fortunately, but pets who don’t have to leave their homes.

UPDATE: During the first week after the launch, over 65,000 people nominated their dogs, according to a Nov. 21, 2019 newsletter from the Dog Aging Project. The 10,000 dogs wanted was “a goal, not a limit!” the newsletter reports. “In fact, the number of dogs we can enroll in the Dog Aging Project Pack is actually UNLIMITED, and we wholeheartedly welcome continued nominations!”

You can nominate your dog to participate whether they’re old or young, big or small, a purebred or a mixed-breed. It’s you who’ll actually be doing all the work as a citizen scientist. Over a five-year period, you’ll need to complete surveys about your dog’s health and life experiences. You may be asked to do certain activities with your dog and report on their performance. You’ll be provided with a genetic testing kit to sample your dog’s saliva.

Of those 10,000 participants, 500 or so middle-aged, medium- to large-sized dogs will be selected for a clinical drug trial, Geekwire reports. The drug, rapamycin, may have anti-aging benefits for pets and people.

Thanks to advances in veterinary care, dogs are living longer than ever nowadays — and getting more geriatric diseases. The study’s chief scientific officer, Dr. Kate Creevy of Texas A&M University, told TODAY there are currently no standards for frailty or prognosis of sick older dogs. The results from the study will change that and possibly lead to medical breakthroughs.

Along with helping to increase life expectancy, the researchers want this project to help increase healthspan, the period of life spent free from disease.

The $23 million study is getting $15 million in funding from the National Institute on Aging (NIA). Dogs and people live together and get the same diseases, NIA Deputy Director Dr. Marie Bernard told TODAY.

I nominated Ella, my almost 10-year-old Pit Bull mix who still acts like a puppy, to become part of the “Dog Aging Project pack” (but I won’t be letting her participate in any drug trials). If you’d like to nominate your dog, complete a brief survey on the Dog Aging Project website.

Photo: Original_Frank

Researchers Hope Anti-Aging Drug Will Extend Dogs’ Lives

Could a chemical that prolongs the lives of fruit flies and mice have the same effect on dogs?

Daniel Promislow, an evolutionary geneticist and dog dad to an 11-year-old Weimaraner, is one of several researchers at the University of Washington who are about to launch a study of that chemical, rapamycin. They are hoping the answer is Yes.

“We’re trying to understand why some dogs age better than others, and help all dogs age in a better way,” Promislow told the Seattle Times.

In dozens of laboratory studies, rapamycin delayed the onset of some diseases and extended the lives of elderly animals by as much as 40 percent. (Rapamycin has also been used to prevent human patients from rejecting transplanted organs.)

“We’re not talking about doubling the healthy life spans of pets,” another of the researchers, molecular biologist Matthew Kaeberlein, told the Seattle Times. “But at a minimum I would predict that you would get a 10-to-15 percent increase in average life span, and I think bigger effects are possible.”

Rapamycin inactivates a protein that causes cells to grow, which in turn can slow down the growth of cancer. The chemical also has anti-inflammatory properties and improves heart health — which is the first potential benefit for dogs the researchers want to track, according to the Seattle Times.

Kaeberlein told Nature.com that pet dogs would provide realistic results of how rapamycin’s anti-aging properties may also work for humans, because the dogs have some of the same environmental influences and age-related diseases as their pet parents.

The participants in the first phase of the study will be 30 large, middle-aged pet dogs whose average breed life span is eight to 10 years. For three to six months, low doses of rapamycin will be given to half of them, while the rest get placebos. The researchers will look for improvements in the dogs’ heart function, as well as any side effects. The dogs will be monitored by veterinarians for the rest of their lives to see if the rapamycin had any effect on their longevity.

In the study’s second phase, the researchers plan to administer rapamycin to hundreds of pet dogs from around the country.

According to Nature.com, the study could wrap up in fewer than three years, “but researchers will know long before that — perhaps in months — whether rapamycin improves cardiac function or other aspects of health.”

The researchers are hoping to get the funds for the study’s second phase from private donations, foundations and/or dog-food companies, since typical underwriters, such as the National Institutes of Health, are more likely to fund studies for human diseases.

“I think it’s worth a go, not just from what it can teach us about humans, but for the sake of the animals themselves,” Steven Austad, chairman of the University of Alabama biology department and an expert in aging research, told the Seattle Times.

“It may not work in dogs, but if it did, boy, it’s going to be huge.”

More information about the study can be found at DogAgingProject.com.

Photo credit: psyberartist

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