Apr 6, 2007
It’s a dog’s life
Cutting out the French fries, burgers, chips, candy, beer, soda, and other delicious yet largely non-nutritious food and drink from your diet is generally a good idea. One of the reasons, health experts suspect, is that somehow a reduced-calorie diet leads to a longer life. Now, researchers at Imperial College London have looked at a dog’s life and discovered why dietary restriction could lead to a longer life.
Jeremy Nicholson and colleagues followed 12 “pairs” of dogs in which one partner in each pair was given 25% less food than the other. Nicholson and his colleagues found that the dogs who had less food lived almost 2 years longer (that perhaps equates to between 10 and 14 years). They also found that those dogs suffered less diabetes and osteoarthritis, and were older on average when plagued by the common diseases of old age.
But, why?
The scientists believe that differences in the populations of microbes in the dogs’ guts could partly explain the metabolic differences. The dogs that were not on a restricted diet had increased levels of potentially unhealthy aliphatic amines in their urine, the team found. The presence of higher levels of these compounds indicate reduced levels of choline, the compound essential for metabolizing fat. Such a microbial profile has, in other studies, been associated with the development of insulin resistance and obesity in humans.
Nicholson explains: “This fascinating study was primarily focused on trying to find optimized nutritional regimes to keep pet animals such as dogs healthy and as long-lived as possible. However these types of life-long studies can help us understand human diseases and aging as well, and that is the added bonus of being able to do long-term non-invasive metabolic monitoring.”
So, might this study be applicable to humans and should we too be cutting down on our doggy treats and Pedigree Chum? Potentially, yes. Despite superficial appearances and the sometimes disgusting things dogs choose to eat, the flora and fauna of our guts are very similar. It all depends on whether cutting your burger and soda intake by 25% is worth it for those extra 10 to 14 dog years.
Details of the study are published today in the Journal of Proteome Research. The paper is one in a special issue of the journal in “Metabolomics, Metabonomics, and Metabolic Profiling in Complex Organisms: The Portals to “Real-Life” Systems Biology”.
Choline chemical structure
InChI=1/C5H14NO/c1-6(2,3)4-5-7/h7H,4-5H2,1-3H3/q+1
In totally, unrelated canine news, scientists from the University of Utah and seven other institutions have identified a piece of doggy DNA that reduces the activity of a growth gene, ensuring that small breeds stay small. More on that via Newswise.
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DV82XL said,
April 7, 2007 at 1:18 am
Don’t eat, don’t smoke, don’t drink - are they sure that we will live longer, or that it will just feel like it.
Photographer said,
April 7, 2007 at 10:32 am
My thinking of dogs is completely different. I think dog is the clevers animal and it’s place is not near the human.
Mick Jones said,
April 10, 2007 at 7:09 pm
According to another paper in J. Nutr. (137:1078-1086, April 2007) we cannot realistically extrapolate the long-term effects of calorie restriction in animals to humans. John Speakman and Catherine Hambly of the University of Aberdeen point out that, “The feasibility of restricting intake in humans for many decades without long-term support is questionable.” They also say that “what is unclear from animal studies is whether taking drugs that suppress appetite will generate the same impact on longevity or whether the neuroendocrine correlates of hunger play an integral role in mediating caloric restriction’s effects.”
Percy said,
April 12, 2007 at 5:54 pm
As a dog myself, I read with interest the news that if I reduce my diet I could live a longer life. I wonder though if the increased life expectancy has anything to do with dogs often doing more exercise than people. You don’t find a dog sitting in front of an XBox 360 with a pizza and a few beers.
David Bradley said,
April 12, 2007 at 6:32 pm
Interesting comment Percy, but, just sit one moment, while I throw you something to chew, this was a comparative study between two groups of the same breed of dog, labradors as it happens. One set were on a standard diet, the other on a 25% reduced diet. Both sets got the same amount of daily exercise as each other, with the exception of Rex who sat on his lardy arse day in day out licking his nuts and eating doggy choc drops. (Outlived the lot of them!)