"Dog owners often treat their pets like miniature humans and now scientists are studying canines in the same way to discover more about the mystery of ageing in people. They suspect a clue to the varying rates at which both dogs and humans age may lie in the kidneys and the gut. In 2020, researchers for the Dog Aging Project in the United States began enrolling dogs in a long-term study of ageing, ending up with about 50,000 canines volunteered by their owners."
"The project was designed to identify patterns of ageing and how they are shaped by genetic and environmental variations. The pets were thought to be ideal models for the research because they have similar genetic diversity, diseases and homes to humans. Dogs vary tremendously, not only in size, shape, and behaviour, but also in their patterns of aging, a new study by the project says."
Scientists are studying pet dogs to uncover mechanisms of ageing that may apply to humans. The Dog Aging Project began enrolling dogs in 2020 and collected volunteers from about 50,000 pets to study long-term aging patterns. The study aims to identify how genetic diversity and environmental differences shape ageing trajectories. Dogs were selected as models because they share genetic diversity, diseases, and living environments with humans and display wide variation in size, behaviour, and ageing patterns. Researchers analyzed blood samples from nearly 800 dogs and identified notable age-linked biological changes that point toward roles for the kidneys and the gut in differing ageing rates.
Read at www.independent.co.uk
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