Canine age

Biologists have found an exact formula for converting the age of dogs into human

Sergey Vasiliev, Naked Science

Based on the fact that the average life expectancy of a person is about 70 years, and a dog is about 10, a simple way to "recalculate" one age into another is widespread, simply multiplying or dividing by seven. However, there is no reliable basis for this method. But there is a new approach proposed by the team of Professor Trey Ideker of the University of California at San Diego.

The authors rely on a modern understanding of epigenetic processes that develop with age: DNA constantly accumulates chemical modifications. The methyl groups attached to certain parts of it help to adjust and control the work of the genome depending on specific conditions and experience. And they, like an hourglass, allow us to estimate the biological age. In humans, the relationship between age and the accumulation of epigenetic modifications has already been revealed. Now such work has been done for dogs; scientists write about it in an article published in the open online library of bioRxiv preprints (Wang et al., Quantitative translation of dog-to-human aging by preserved remodeling of epigenetic networks).

It is worth noting that dogs are distinguished by a wide variety of breeds of different sizes, character, and so on. The study of Ideker and his colleagues was conducted exclusively on labradors: 104 animals aged from four weeks to 16 years were selected. The analysis showed that, as in humans, with age, the DNA of dogs accumulates methyl groups, and some genes in which this process is particularly pronounced were common to both species. Actually, it was the search for general patterns of "age-related" methylation in mammals that was the purpose of the study.

The authors traced the characteristic changes that could draw parallels between certain ages in different species. This allowed them to find a formula for converting some years into others: 
human age = 16 * ln (dog age) + 31.

The mere presence of a natural logarithm in the formula suggests that both ages correlate non-linearly. So, a one-year–old Labrador is "equal" to a 31-year–old person, a five-year-old is 57-year-old, and an eight-year-old is 64-year-old. By following the link you can find a calculator with calculations for one year, but by typing the formula with a different dog age in the window again, you can get the desired result.

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