When calculating the age of dogs adopted historically used a ratio of 1:7, meaning that one human year of life corresponds to about seven dog. However, as studies have shown that this technique is not true.
A group of scientists of the medical faculty of the University of California San Diego (UCSD) in conjunction with specialists-geneticists has developed a new, more accurate method of “translation” – dog years in a human using a velocity of molecular changes in DNA of dogs. The object of the study were the blood samples collected from 105 dogs from age a few weeks to 16 years.
Scientists have tried to reveal regularities of changes in chemical markers in the DNA of dogs, due to age. An important tool in determining the physiological age of the people became epigenetics, and the UCSD team chose to use it in relation to dogs. Blood 105 Labradors allowed to reveal the peculiarities of changes of methylation on the basis of which managed to provide a more accurate picture of their physiological age.
The regularities in dogs the researchers compared with a human, the result of which came to the conclusion that the age relationship between them is far from linear: in dogs rapid age-related changes have at a young age, but then as they age, they slow down.
The picture looks like this: year-old dog is more like a man at the age of 30 years, but not seven children. At the same time, four-year-old dog is more in line with the age of 52-year-old man, but for seven years the dog’s aging process is much slower.
According to scientists, the disadvantage of this particular study is that it was involved in dog of only one breed, so they need to continue.
Source — University of California San Diego