EFor six months, Casey has been undergoing careful cardiac testing in a laboratory; she has undergone extensive genetic profiling and is now participating in a drug trial that researchers believe could extend her life. Casey, an 11-year-old Labrador/German Shepherd cross who lives with her owner Kate Saunders in Massachusetts, is part of the growing effort to help dogs live better longer, which gerontologists hope will also extend human lifespans can improve.
Late last year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Center for Veterinary Medicine gave conditional approval to a drug developed by San Francisco-based biotech company Loyal that could be available as a life-extension aid for large dogs by 2026.
The news from Loyal has given new hope to Saunders and countless other owners for whom an extra health span for their pets is an opportunity not to be missed. The new drug, LOY-001, targets a growth hormone called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor), whose presence is about 28 times greater in large dogs than in small dogs. (It also occurs naturally in humans.)
Extensive research, including a 2019 study of 169,000 dogs, has shown that size is the most important variable in predicting lifespan – namely, the larger the mutt, the shorter that lifespan will be. That led Celine Halioua, the founder and CEO of Loyal (and a self-described “huge dog lover” whose rottweiler, Della, sleeps on the couch as we talk via Zoom) to target IGF-1. Breeding dogs for size for hundreds of years “essentially gave them an unintended genetic accelerated aging disorder,” Halioua says. Studying IGF-1, as is the case in some studies which appears to be at a low level in centenarians, she said, was an opportunity to address what is “a clear unmet medical need”.
According to Halioua, LOY-001 can successfully reduce IGF-1 levels in the blood within “one week” – the question now is “how can you actually determine that there may be a causal relationship here; that high IGF-1 level accelerates aging.” Loyal measures this through owner and vet quality of life assessments (charting how comfortable the animals seem and signs of cognitive decline such as uninvited barking) – methods that are “not perfect, but the best tools we have” – along with surveys to see if the drug has the desired effect. Early intervention is crucial, Halioua adds. “I don’t think it makes sense that we wait until the end stages of a disease before we start treating it.”
Other studies on extending canine health have their focus elsewhere. The Dog Aging Project (Dap), a collaboration between the University of Washington and Texas A&M University, has collected more than 50,000 participants and “more than 30 million data points” from its dog studies, says co-director Matt Kaeberlein. There is now a trial (in which Casey is participating) to investigate the effects of the drug rapamycin. It inhibits a protein called mTOR that regulates cell growth and metabolism, and has been found to extend the lifespan of laboratory animals by as much as 14% at low doses when taken in old age; a 2023 article called it “the only drug consistently shown to extend lifespan in mammals.”
Analysis by Dap last year showed that 27% of dog owners whose pets took rapamycin noticed improvements in their dog’s health and behavior (compared to 8% who received a placebo). Kaeberlein predicts that a formulation of the drug could hit the market within two years, given its “very promising effects on heart disease and cardiac aging” in cats. “Everyone talks about dogs, but it could actually happen first in cats.”
YIn terms of providing clues to human aging, tests on dogs, as opposed to laboratory mice (or even cats), could bridge the gap in animal and human life extension, says Nir Barzilai, professor of genetics and medicine at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. “They share our environment in such a way that their microbiota (bacteria present in one place, such as the human digestive tract) is more similar to that of their owners than to that of other dogs.” We eat similar foods and follow similar lifestyles, our metabolisms work in much the same way, and we suffer from the same diseases, including cancer and cognitive decline. Dogs in many countries also have electronic medical records, making it easier to map their – and our – health history in detail.
The strength of people’s feelings about their pets can lead them to invest more in maintaining their animal’s health than in their own well-being. “Dogs will be a platform that will be very important for us, because it will allow us to reduce the risks, and without putting the dog in greater danger,” says Barzilai, who notes that dog exercises help not only the participants, but also their owners who must accompany them.
Kaeberlein says there may be other crossover areas for the expansion of human and dog health. These include urolithin A – “a natural product that activates a process called autophagy (when cells remove unnecessary or harmful components) and, in particular, what is called mitophagy (removal of mitochondria, the powerhouses of cells that release energy, to improve mitochondrial function) during aging” – and parabiosis, in which older mice are fed the blood of younger mice, which appears to extend their lives by 6-9%.
He also suggests targeting metabolic pathways using AMP-activated protein kinase, an enzyme that regulates cell metabolism, and metformin, used as a diabetes drug in Britain, which human longevity researchers believe it is an essential tool in reducing age-related diseases. .
There are twelve generally accepted hallmarks of human aging, including genomic instability (accumulated genetic damage), cellular senescence (when cells can no longer grow and divide), stem cell depletion (where they struggle to renew, causing organs can no longer recover from damage) and chronic inflammation.
Currently, the most proven way to tackle several of these issues at once is – as always – proper diet and exercise. A 2022 study published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine concluded that “following both a quality diet and adequate physical activity are important for optimally reducing the risk of mortality from any cause,” with the greatest risk reduction among those who practiced both. “Living longer is a side effect of living healthier,” says Barzilai.
Still, in a post-Ozempic world, the idea of a medical solution to our problems has become all the more compelling — even if there are “conflicting opinions” about what that might look like, says Cathy Slack, a researcher who studies aging . the University of Warwick. Although LOY-001 has made waves about canine aging, “in certain contexts, blood IGF-1 levels provide us with a useful biomarker for human aging, (but) it doesn’t tell us the whole picture.”
There’s also the issue of how much individual aging varies, Slack said, which “poses a significant hurdle in devising universal interventions. Everyone will age differently, reflecting not only individual genetic differences but also the way our genetics, environments and experiences interact.” Wealth, she adds, may prove to be a more compelling indicator of life expectancy than our DNA.
Barzilai says medicine helps us live longer Are in the works – but that more momentum is needed to pressure governments to adopt them more quickly. “We need the public to say, ‘What’s going on? Why is it so difficult for (the authorities) to understand that we want to stay healthy and not get diseases?’ This is what the field promises. And the reason it doesn’t yield results has more to do with the (challenges of) the regulations than with a lack of evidence.”
Tfrom the UK Health Security Agency Health Profile 2018 for England The report concluded that “although we are living longer than we did decades ago, we are not necessarily living healthier.” The number of years lived in poor health increased within a two-year period from 15.7 to 16.2 for men and from 18.6 to 19.3 for women. By 2043, the over 65 age group will account for a quarter of the UK population. according to projections; The number of over-85s, which now costs the NHS an average of £7,000 per person per year, will double.
“We can not afford not to do it,” Barzilai says of the mission to develop drugs for longevity. “It’s good for the individual to be healthy and it’s good for the economy to be healthy. For people to say that longevity is a dream, or that it is expensive, is absolutely ridiculous.”
However, the more attention these drugs receive, the more so-called “longevity influencers” want to make money from them. They have become social media magnets (for humans now, but perhaps soon for dogs), making a veritable fortune using supplements without scientific means. According to Barzilai, they support their millions of online followers and create “a lot of noise” for consumers who aren’t sure how to separate the wheat from the chaff. While most are harmless (and do not require regulatory approval because they are billed as health supplements rather than medications), the effects when they are combined can be more harmful than we realize.
If “you buy all those things… you’re more likely to get sick than you are to be healthy,” Barzilai warns, because “we can’t assume that everything is additive or synergistic. Some of them are hostile.”
More clinical trials and regulatory will will be needed to bring longevity drugs to the shelves, but in the meantime, Barzilai says dogs will play a key role in establishing “trust in drugs that we’re not yet ready to use.” (on) people”. Many owners agree, and hope that registering their puppies proves to be a win-win game.
“Improving the quality of life for dogs is a great goal, and we may be able to learn something about factors that help other species, including humans,” says Saunders. “I think we all want to help those we love live healthier, happier lives, whether you walk on two feet or four.”