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Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

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Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#11

Post by loudmax »

deadbabe wrote: post #2

Why would any creature have hormones to accelerate aging as opposed to just letting the body wear out naturally with use?

This is pure speculation, but maybe it's beneficial in some circumstances to make way for the younger generation?

Natural selection doesn't necessarily favor genes that optimize the health of a particular animal. Natural selection favors genes that optimize for more copies of themselves, at whatever cost to their current carriers. Perhaps under some scenarios of canine evolution, the fittest genes might have been ones that selected for higher turnover than would happen if bodies wore out naturally.

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#12

Post by nativeit »

fallingknife wrote: post #7

Do we really need to be using up government resources doing drug approvals for dogs? It takes so long to get human drugs approved. Let's use the resources there and let the market sort out what works for animals.

Well, as COVID proved, whatever drugs get made for animals will one day be consumed by idiots. Why argue against approving veterinary drugs, when you could argue for greater resources to be committed?

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#13

Post by idopmstuff »

deadbabe wrote: post #2

Why would any creature have hormones to accelerate aging as opposed to just letting the body wear out naturally with use?

Bear in mind dogs are pretty unnatural creatures at this point - we've done so much breeding that you can't really assume any natural forces apply to their development at this point. After all, why would any creature develop a facial structure that makes it hard to breathe (like bulldogs, pugs, etc.)? The answer is because humans are selfish.

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#14

Post by drakonka »

If anyone here has any anti-aging resources for cats, I'd love to see them. I have two 9-year-old Maine Coons whom I'm supplementing with glucosamine for joint and urinary health, and wonder if there's more I could be doing.

Edit: Getting some great tips on core diet and health down below! Luckily we're already doing most of those, and I guess I'm largely wondering about advancements in supplementation or preventative medicine (of course everything would have to be considered with a veterinarian). Here are other basic things we already do:

* My most important thing is not giving any dry food. Especially since one of my cats is prone to urinary problems and gets sick within just a couple of weeks if given even a partially-dry diet. But even if he wasn't prone to it, with what I've learned over the years I would not feed any cat dry food.

* We eat partly wet partly homemade raw (but the latter needs to come with careful research and caveats since cats have very delicate nutritional needs).

* Keep water bowls away from food and switch bowls/fountain once in a while for novelty.

* Indoor-only and we go for walks on a harness for enrichment when the weather is nice.

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#15

Post by swader999 »

fallingknife wrote: post #7

Do we really need to be using up government resources doing drug approvals for dogs? It takes so long to get human drugs approved. Let's use the resources there and let the market sort out what works for animals.

Should we move all veterinarians to humans then? Are you aware it's not the same biology?

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#17

Post by nonameiguess »

deadbabe wrote: post #2

Why would any creature have hormones to accelerate aging as opposed to just letting the body wear out naturally with use?

I don't know what the mechanism for accelerating aging is in this case and it doesn't say, but IGF-1 serves a lot of purposes and it is ubiquitous among at least all mammals and I'm sure other animals I'm not familiar with. It is necessary for growth and healing and is what causes infants to grow and mature into adults. As with just about any molecule synthesized by a body, when its effect on mortality has been studied in humans, being either too low or too high are both associated with greater mortality risk. I'm guessing it's probably the same with dogs. Having higher growth hormone levels makes the larger breeds larger but also shortens lifespan. Nonetheless, being larger can clearly be important for a predator, especially in very cold regions where most available prey like caribou and bison and what not are very large. Shorter life might even be evolutionarily advantaeous on its own in places with food scarcity that can't sustain large predator populations. The old die to make way for the young as they'd otherwise starve them out.

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#18

Post by swader999 »

nativeit wrote: post #12
fallingknife wrote: post #7

Do we really need to be using up government resources doing drug approvals for dogs? It takes so long to get human drugs approved. Let's use the resources there and let the market sort out what works for animals.

Well, as COVID proved, whatever drugs get made for animals will one day be consumed by idiots. Why argue against approving veterinary drugs, when you could argue for greater resources to be committed?

That stuff was already approved for human use since 1980 and has safety data for a billion plus doses. Nobel Prize awarded for it too.

Re: Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

#19

Post by huytersd »

deadbabe wrote: post #2

Why would any creature have hormones to accelerate aging as opposed to just letting the body wear out naturally with use?

Because the dogs we made aren’t naturally selected. We heavily selectively bred for many superficial phenotypes so it’s not strange to see side effects like this.
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