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Dogs and humans may share a surprisingly similar biological "fingerprint" of aging, according to new research from the Dog Aging Project. The finding could give scientists a useful new way to investigate how aging works in both species. In a study recently published in The Journals of Gerontology, researchers examined metabolites, small chemicals and molecules created during normal processes in the body. They found that certain combinations of these metabolites were associated with earlier or later death in dogs in ways that closely resembled patterns previously identified in humans.
The researchers analyzed blood samples from dogs participating in the Dog Aging Project. This community science effort follows dogs throughout their lives, with owners contributing detailed survey information and, in some cases, physical samples. The research team examined the blood for metabolic patterns associated with lifespan, focusing specifically on whether individual dogs died earlier or later. Using mortality as a clear endpoint allows scientists to work backward and investigate which biological processes may have contributed to the outcome.
To find out whether the metabolic patterns seen in dogs also appeared in people, they compared their results with five large published studies of human mortality that used similar methods to examine metabolites. Across those studies, the signals associated with earlier or later death were broadly similar to those found in dogs. This consistency was one of the most striking results, adding evidence that dogs and humans share important features of the biology that underlies aging.