Before we have an anti-aging drug for humans, we’re likely to have one for dogs. Multiple clinical trials are currently underway to test potential anti-aging compounds on dogs, since our best friends have become a popular animal model for human aging. Fido also represents a potentially huge market.

The science could benefit both species, but premature claims are already causing a credibility problem.

Recently, Harvard University biologist David Sinclair started marketing life-extension supplements for dogs, touting unpublished clinical trial data that others in the field found completely unconvincing. In March, Sinclair, who didn’t respond to requests for an interview, changed the wording of a press release, which originally promised the chewy treats would “reverse aging.” Now it says they reverse the effects of age-related decline.

Sinclair’s trial used dog owners’ subjective assessments of cognitive changes in their older pets — and other scientists say the trials don’t show a consistent enough effect even for this more modest claim. (Sinclair became famous in the 1990s for some highly publicized papers tying aging to proteins called sirtuins — an idea that led to the now widely disputed belief that red wine has anti-aging properties.)

While the FDA is authorized to regulate veterinary drugs, it doesn’t approve supplements for pets or people, so these can be sold without going through tests for safety and efficacy.

Whether anti-aging supplements for dogs work or not, there’s likely to be demand, said Arthur Caplan, a professor of ethics at New York University. In the past, desperate dog owners have had their dead or dying dogs cloned — hoping the clone would be essentially a reincarnation of their dead pet.

Some researchers who study aging fear that the spectacle of a high-level professor hawking dog longevity supplements will further tarnish the reputation of a field already dragged down by self-proclaimed experts pushing fad diets and unproven anti-aging treatments for people.

There’s a lot to gain from a better scientific understanding of aging. Getting older is a risk factor for all the major killer diseases — heart disease, cancer and even severe Covid. And in the US, the ranks of people over 70 will swell within the coming years, creating a vast increase in the number of people suffering from dementia or other age-related problems.

But scientists don’t yet agree on what causes aging or what approach would work best to slow it down. While wear and tear will eventually affect all living things, some organisms live many times longer than others, even among closely related species. Some researchers think an animal’s aging rate is controlled by certain genes. Other experts cite the shrinking of the caps on the end of or chromosomes, called telomers. Others blame the degeneration of the packaging around our DNA — so-called epigenetic markers, which can activate or suppress certain genes. Some scholars blame damage caused by chronic inflammation. Still others, the buildup of cellular waste products.

Some of these possible mechanisms of aging can be altered with drugs in a way that endows worms, fruit flies and mice with longer lives. Which drugs should be tried in humans? Clinical trials to test their effects on longevity in people could take decades — long enough for the study subjects to live out the rest of their lives.

...continued

©2024 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com/opinion. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.