by As in people, age in dogs is associated with the risk of many diseases. And the size of the canes is an important factor in that risk. is good knew that those of larger size live less than those laps.
But size patterns are much more complex than that for science.
While small dogs tend to live longer, in some diseases are more prevalent.
That is why a study from the University of Washington based on more than 27 thousand dogs from the United States, which has just been published in the journal Plos One, sought to quantify how the historical pattern of dog diseases It varies across the spectrum of size, weight and age.
Even with uncertainties, some findings allow us to scratch clear concepts about why little ones live longer than big ones.
Big dogs get sicker
Data that the people themselves provided about the history of diseases of your pets (most are crossbreeds, but they represented 238 breeds), registered as volunteers in the Dog Aging Project, the ambitious ongoing project through which a consortium of veterinarians and scientists investigate dog longevity, to “reduce the effects of age in dogs and people.”
This group of experts aimed to understand how body size, as measured by weight, is associated with the lifetime prevalence of a reported disease, and its pattern across age for various disease categories.
“We found significantly positive associations between dog size and lifetime prevalence of diseases of the skin, bones, gastrointestinal, ears/nose/throat, cancer, neurological, endocrinological and infectious,” details the research article signed by Yunbi Nam and Michelle White, along with other experts.
Meanwhile, smaller dogs were more likely to have had eye, heart, liver/pancreas, and respiratory. History of kidney/urinary disease did not differ significantly between larger and smaller dogs.
“We also found that the association between age and lifetime disease prevalence varied by dog size for many conditions,” he describes.
Hay difference between males and femalesIf the dogs are purebred or mixed and the geographical area of residence of those pets? The report clarifies that these variables did not make a “big difference” in all the categories of diseases studied.
The results held up even after the researchers statistically accounted for the dogs’ sex, where they lived, and whether they were purebred or mixed breed.
“Our results are consistent with the reduced lifespan in older dogs for most disease categories and suggest possible avenues for further investigation,” they reinforce.
Although the researchers point out that this study does not confirm no causal relationship between the size, age and illness of the dog, provides a data analysis on the subject that has never been published until now.
The key is that these results could help achieve, they explain, “a deeper understanding of the types of conditions that may be the cause of the shorter life expectancy of larger dogs.”
For example, within the disease categories explored, future research could focus on age and size patterns associated with specific conditions.
Dog Longevity and Metabolism
“It has been known for a long time that the largest dogs are the ones with the least longevity. It is also known that purebred dogs, in general, die before mixed breeds, something that is logical: purebred dogs, due to consanguinity (crosses with each other) inherit many more diseases,” he explains to Clarion Nélida Gómez, former vice dean of the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences of the UBA.
For Gómez, the key to delving into these known truths is the question of dog metabolism. “The greater the metabolic size, the shorter the lifespan in dogs,” he insists.
Small dogs have many characteristic attributes that are unique. In addition to the obvious difference in their size, little ones, for example, have a higher basal metabolic rate (which indicates the amount of calories their bodies need to perform metabolic functions).
The Dog Aging Project, through analysis of blood drawn from enrolled dogs, aims to see these differences at a molecular level. From how a small dog manages its insulin levels compared to a large one, to the differences in bone density in each size.
In addition to markers in blood, saliva, and urine, the team on this project examines epigenetic markers: the chemical groups that attach to DNA and control how genes make proteins (in dogs or people).
These patterns appear to change throughout life, and “aging clocks” have been developed to estimate an organism’s biological age from that information.
Without extrapolating the study to what happens with dogs in Argentina, Carina Passeri, a specialist in the Respiratory Diseases Service of the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine at the UBA, explains to Clarion that metabolism is key to the greater longevity of children.
But he clarifies that the gap in years lived according to the size of the dogs is narrowing.
“Due to the increase in technology and veterinary techniques, we were able to advance in all diseases, which means that large dogs have a higher quality of life and better progress in years of life,” he explains.
