Every dog year not equivalent to seven human years, scientists find

[Eugene]

Related: Quantitative Translation of Dog-to-Human Aging by Conserved Remodeling of the DNA Methylome (Cell Systems)

______________________________________________________________________

Source: The Guardian

Every dog year not equivalent to seven human years, scientists find

Study of DNA changes in labradors suggests puppies age much faster than older dogs

Nicola Davis
@NicolaKSDavis
Thu 2 Jul 2020 15.07 BST
Last modified on Thu 2 Jul 2020 17.50 BST

Dogs do not simply age at seven times the rate of humans, scientists have found in a study that reveals young dogs might be “older” than previously thought.

The findings suggest a one-year-old puppy is actually about 30 in “human years” – an age when humans, at least, might be expected to have stopped running riot with the toilet paper.

Writing in the journal Cell Systems, researchers at the University of California San Diego’s school of medicine describe how they focused on epigenetic changes to DNA – modifications that don’t change the DNA sequence but can switch genes on or off.

The team looked at the way particular molecules, called methyl groups, accumulated in certain areas of the human genome over time and compared them with how they accumulated in similar areas in the dog genome.

The results, which draw on genetic data from about 100 labrador retrievers from puppies to elderly animals, reveal every dog year is not equivalent to seven human years.

-snip-

Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/jul/02/every-human-year-not-equivalent-to-seven-dog-years-scientists-find

[lastlib]

1. That has been known for a long time.

In their first year, dogs attain the physical maturity of a human young adult; by ten years of age, they start approaching a human geriatric phase that can last five to eight years.

This confirms a genetic basis for their growth/aging process.

[woodsprite]

2. So my 13yo shepherd is really getting up there.

😢. She just had her b’day! Unfortunately, I know we’ll be saying goodbye to her probably within a year or maybe a bit more. She’s just been diagnosed with degenerative myelopathy and while I want to give her every chance she has, I don’t want to let it go so long that she loses all quality of life like I have seen some people do. We were going by the 7 to 1 calculation and were thinking she was around 91. This just calculates to be even older.