A US biotech company is gearing up to market a beef-flavored longevity pill for dogs that could extend their lives by up to a year – and some scientists think similar drugs could do the same for humans.
San Francisco-based company Loyal plans to launch the LOY-002 pill in early 2025. This daily medication is designed to slow and reverse metabolic changes associated with aging.
More specifically, the pill reduces vulnerability by suppressing the aging-induced increase in insulin, thereby reducing the risk of disease, prolonging health, and slowing the rate of aging.
LOY-002 is currently undergoing a clinical trial in companion dogs and the company is targeting conditional approval from the FDA next year.
But Loyal isn’t the only research group interested in extending the lives of our canine companions. At the Dog Aging Project laboratory at the University of Washington (UW), researchers are testing rapamycin as another agent to extend the lifespan of dogs.
Rapamycin is often used as an immunosuppressant for humans after organ transplants, but it has already shown promise as a lifespan extender in mice, extending lifespan and delaying or reversing many age-related conditions.
The Dog Aging Project suggests that low doses of rapamycin may have the same effect in dogs, specifically by regulating cell growth and metabolism to improve cardiac and cognitive functions. This study aims to extend the lives of dogs by up to three years.
Everyone wants more time with their precious pets. But that’s not the only thing that motivates these scientists. They believe this work could ultimately translate into benefits for human longevity as well.
Researchers are developing new drugs that can extend a dog’s life by one to three years. Ultimately, they could also be used to improve human longevity
“Finding out how to prevent age-related decline in dogs is a very strong indication to do the same with humans, because dogs develop similar age-related diseases and share our environment and habits in a way that laboratory mice do not,” says Celine Halioua, founder and CEO of Loyal, said the Guardian.
Loyal has raised $125 million in funding from companies that have not invested in sustainability projects due to their long duration. However, dog-based trials proceed more quickly due to the animals’ naturally shorter lifespans.
The Dog Aging Project also recognizes the connection between dog lifespan and human lifespan.
“If we are successful with dogs, this could be a turning point in informing us how to give human populations additional healthy lifespans,” project co-director and UW biogerontologist Daniel Promislow told the Guardian.
“Our study is light years ahead of anything that has been done on humans or can be done on humans,” he added.
‘What we are doing is the equivalent of a 40-year human study, testing the ability of a drug to extend healthy lifespan.’
Promislow and his colleagues believe their research could also have implications for women’s health, especially for women before and after menopause.
That’s because they split their findings not only into male and female dogs, but also into pre- and post-spay or surgical sterilization.
‘We also have data on the age at which dogs are sterilized – which could carry over to the variation in age at which women enter menopause – and data on why they are sterilized, which could carry over to women who have had a hysterectomy for medical reasons . Kate Creevy, co-founder and chief veterinary officer of the project, told the Guardian.
Helping dogs live longer, healthier lives also benefits human longevity in other ways. Studies have shown that owning a dog improves human health and reduces the risk of death
Furthermore, research suggests that simply owning a dog can help people live longer, healthier lives – another reason why finding ways to improve dog lifespans could benefit human longevity.
A couple by studies published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes suggests that dog ownership is associated with a 21 percent reduction in the risk of death for people with heart disease.
Additionally, experts note that owning a dog encourages an active lifestyle, as our furry friends need regular, supervised exercise and playtime.
Research has shown that dogs also have a positive impact on our mental health, by reducing anxiety, promoting social connection and combating loneliness.
While the initial results from scientists at Loyal and the Dog Aging Project are promising, this growing field of research still has a long way to go before the findings can be directly applied to human lives.
It will take at least another five years before the Dog Aging Project reports its results. And right now, researchers can’t test dog longevity drugs on humans, no matter how positive the results are in dogs, Jamie Justice, professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake Forest University School of Medicine, told the Guardian.
“Because we cannot perform 40-year longevity tests on humans, we need a universally accepted biomarker to demonstrate the impact of drugs on predictors of health problems that we agree are associated with aging,” she said.
But if scientists can agree on those parameters, testing in humans can begin. In the meantime, these researchers will continue working to extend the life of man’s best friend.