In the largest study to date on aging in dogs, researchers will follow tens of thousands of dogs for 10 years to gather critical information on whether canine life expectancy can be improved. They will also examine whether dogs’ overall quality of life can be maintained over a longer geriatric stretch. Which dogs will participate? Perhaps yours.
The researchers, led by investigators at the University of Washington School of Medicine and Texas A&M University’s College of Veterinary Medicine, want the participation of pet dogs of all breeds (and mixed breeds) from across the United States. Throughout the study, the scientists will periodically send online surveys to owners to learn how the nexus of a dog’s genes, lifestyle, and environment influence both the life span and the health span.
The scientists hope the information gathered will help improve and lengthen the lives of people, too. People and dogs share the same diseases of aging, and they also share the same environment, in addition to having a number of similar genes. Thus, the information amassed should lead to better predictability of disease, better treatment, and better disease prevention for both species.
But the information collection will go faster with research that follows aging dogs rather than aging humans. “We can learn in dogs in 10 years what it would take 70 years to learn in people because of the difference in the rate of aging” between the two species, says Dog Aging Project co-director Matt Kaeberlein, PhD, a professor of pathology at the University of Washington School of Medicine whose focus is the mechanisms of aging.
Of course, Dr. Kaeberlein, the owner of three dogs, is also excited about what he calls “the intrinsic value” of learning things about improving the health and longevity of our pet canines. “Dogs are important to us. I love my dogs,” he says. “The goals of extending the healthy period of human life and canine life are very complementary.”
Which dogs are likely to be accepted into the project?
The online questionnaire to nominate your dog for the Dog Aging Project takes only a few minutes to complete. Strong candidates include dogs people have had since they were puppies and owners with strong knowledge of what happened early in a dog’s life, including injuries and diseases. Candidacy is also based on ability to measure your pet’s body dimensions and play certain games with him that will help the researchers assess your dog’s thinking.
To nominate your dog for the Dog Aging Project, all you have to do is go to DogAgingProject.org and answer a few questions, including your dog’s age, breed if known, and year of birth. The scientists will choose study subjects from there.
To then be part of the Dog Aging Project Pack, owners need only complete a longer survey and provide their dog’s veterinary records. A subset of those dogs will be chosen for participation in special cohorts that will be studied in more depth. Owners of these dogs will have to visit the veterinarian for a check-up at least once a year, which any conscientious dog owner is already doing. And they will have to have the ability to take their dog to the vet for certain blood or urine tests, if needed. Such tests will be paid for not by you but by the study, which is being sponsored by the National Institute on Aging, a Division of the National Institutes of Health.
As part of the research, the study team plans to develop tests to measure a dog’s changes in physical function as it gets older. There are already such tests for older humans, like moving from sitting to standing and handling grip devices. For dogs, however, there are currently few standardized assessments.
“There’s no specialty in geriatrics for veterinarians, as there is for physicians,” Dr. Kaeberlein notes. “As a consequence, the functional tests that we use to ascertain people’s health have not really been developed” for dogs. “Labs at veterinary teaching hospitals can do some tests with expensive equipment. But our hope is that one of the outcomes of the study will be our ability to provide the veterinary community and dog owners alike with quantitative tests — tests that can be scored — and that can be done either in a veterinary clinic or at home.” The team is looking into tests that follow changes in a dog’s gait over time and a test for ability to climb stairs, as examples. The hope is that such tests will provide information not only about dogs’ physical function but will also serve as predictors of future disease and death, which may be able to be forestalled with the right interventions.
The investigators are also looking at tests for cognitive function. “If you have a treat and tell your dog to sit for it, how long will he sit before he gets distracted?” Dr. Kaeberlein asks. “A dog’s ability to focus declines with age,” he says, and wonders if that decline can be captured with a scoring system.
Owners who enter their dogs into the study are being called “citizen scientists” by the researchers. The moniker is apt. Without their participation in the research, this effort to learn whether dogs’ lives can be lengthened would not be possible.
A Drug to Slow the Aging Process?
A second, much smaller arm of the Dog Aging Project will look at several hundred dogs administered the drug rapamycin. Rapamycin has been used in people for decades both as a chemotherapy agent to battle cancer and as an anti-rejection drug for organ transplant recipients. But this drug, a chemical produced by bacteria in soil, also appears to counteract some of the processes involved in aging. In lab experiments, it has significantly extended the lifespan of yeasts, worms, fruit flies, and mice. In addition, a pilot study has indicated that it may improve heart function in dogs who do not have heart disease but whose heart function has declined as part of the normal aging process.
Results will take years to come in, and there might be side effects of rapamycin that have to be studied and overcome. But if the drug proves promising for dogs, it might then have potential applications for use in people.
