An American biotechnology company is preparing to launch a meat-flavored longevity pill for dogs that could extend their lives by up to a year, and some scientists believe similar drugs could do the same for humans.
San Francisco-based Loyal aims to bring the LOY-002 pill to market in early 2025. This daily medication is designed to slow and reverse metabolic changes associated with aging.
More specifically, the pill reduces frailty by suppressing insulin increases caused by aging, which reduces the risk of disease, prolongs health, and slows the rate of aging.
LOY-002 is currently in a clinical study with companion dogs and the company hopes to obtain conditional approval from the FDA next year.
But Loyal is not the only research group interested in extending the life of our canine companions. In the Dog Aging Project lab at the University of Washington (UW), researchers are testing rapamycin as another canine longevity drug.
Rapamycin is commonly used as an immunosuppressant in humans after organ transplant operations, but has already shown promise as a longevity drug in mice, increasing lifespan and delaying or reversing many age-related disorders.
The Dog Aging Project suggests that low doses of rapamycin could 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 life of dogs by up to three years.
Everyone wants to spend more time with their precious pets. But that’s not the only thing that motivates these scientists. They believe this work could eventually translate into benefits for human longevity as well.
Researchers are developing new medications that could extend a dog’s life by one to three years. In time, they could also be used to improve human longevity.
“Figuring out how to prevent canine age-related decline is a very important indicator of doing the same for humans, because dogs suffer from similar age-related diseases and share our environments and habits in a way that laboratory mice do not.” they do,” said Celine Halioua, founder and CEO of Loyal the guardian.
Loyal has raised $125 million in funding from companies that have refrained from investing in longevity projects due to the length of those trials. However, dog trials are progressing faster due to the animals’ naturally shorter lifespans.
The Dog Aging Project also recognizes the link between canine longevity and human longevity.
“If we are successful with dogs, it could be a turning point in how to give human populations healthier lives as well,” project co-director and University of Washington biogerontologist Daniel Promislow told The Guardian.
“Our study is light years ahead of anything that has been done or can be done in humans,” he added.
“What we are doing is the equivalent of a 40-year study in humans, testing the ability of a drug to increase healthy life expectancy.”
Promislow and her colleagues believe their research could also have implications for women’s health, specifically pre- and postmenopausal women.
This is because they divided their findings not only between male and female dogs, but also according to surgical sterilization or before and after sterilization.
“We also have data on the age at which the dogs were neutered, which could reflect variation in the age at which women have menopause, and data on why they were neutered, which could be passed on to women who have been neutered. undergoing hysterectomies for medical reasons,’ Kate Creevy, co-founder and veterinary director of the project, told The Guardian.
Helping dogs live longer, healthier lives benefits human longevity in other ways, too. Studies have shown that owning a dog improves human health and reduces the risk of death.
What’s more, research suggests that simply owning a dog can help people live longer, healthier lives, another reason why finding ways to improve canine longevity could benefit human longevity.
TO pair of studies published in the journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes suggests that dog ownership is linked to a 21 percent reduction in the risk of death in people with heart disease.
Additionally, experts note that owning a dog encourages an active lifestyle, as our furry friends require 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 early results from Loyal and Dog Aging Project scientists are promising, this growing field of research still has a long way to go before the findings can be directly applied to human lives.
The Dog Aging Project is still at least five years away from reporting its results. And right now, researchers can’t test canine longevity drugs in humans, no matter how positive the results are in dogs, Jamie Justice, a professor of gerontology and geriatric medicine at Wake University School of Medicine, told The Guardian. Forest.
“Since we cannot perform 40-year longevity tests in humans, we need a universally accepted biomarker to show the impact of medications on predictors of health problems that we agree correlate with aging,” he said.
But if scientists can agree on those parameters, testing could begin in humans. In the meantime, these researchers will continue working to prolong the life of man’s best friend.