- Christian Yates
- BBC
Dogs grow steadily in their first year until they grow up to 31 years of human life
Anyone whose dog is ten years old knows that the lifespan of this animal can be equal to the lifespan of a human who has lived for more than 70 years, calculating that each year of a dog’s life is equal to seven years of human life. which is the calculation that has been achieved taking into account that the average life expectancy of humans is 77 years, while the average lifespan of a dog is about 11 years.
However, new research reveals that things are not so simple, and seeing some of the obvious signs of growth, it becomes clear why. For example, most dog breeds reach sexual maturity between the ages of six months and one year – and by Taking the maximum and meeting it with the traditional method of calculation, puberty will correspond to seven years in humans. Moreover, the lifespan of dogs can sometimes be extended, if rarely, up to 20 years, and if we apply the rule from one to seven, this will correspond to 140 years in humans, which is unrealistic.
The average lifespan of a dog depends largely on its breed. Smaller dogs usually have a longer lifespan, which means that they age more slowly than larger dogs.
All of this raises the question of what is meant specifically by age. Perhaps the direct method of calculating age is the number of years since birth, which is called the chronological determination of age. However, there are other definitions of age, such as biological age; It is a subjective definition based on the assessment of physiological indicators to monitor an individual’s growth and development, including measurements such as the “weakness index” – which takes into account the individual’s health status, degree of impairment, cognitive ability and level of activity.
There are also more objective biomarkers of aging, such as levels of gene expression (genes produce specific proteins at different rates with age) or the number of immune cells. The rate of increase of biological longevity also depends on genetic factors as well as on the mental health and lifestyle of the individual.
published photo, Getty Images
Recent research suggests that dogs age much faster than owners think
For example, a person who eats a lot of harmful foods, smokes a lot and does not exercise, exposes himself to an increase of his biological age above his chronological age. Also, your chronological age can be 60 years old while your body condition is 40 years old if you take good care of yourself.
When we talk about comparing the ages of animals of different species, biological definitions are more useful than calculating the chronological age. When we are told that a pet mouse is six weeks old, this does not give us a good picture of what stage it is at. miu. has reached in her life, even if we know that rats live in The average is three years. But when we know that the mouse has reached the age of reproduction and the birth of children, this gives us a clearer picture of its maturity.
The authors of the new study see the reliability of calculating biological age through what is known as the “genetic clock”, which means DNA-related changes (DNA) that accumulate over time in mammals.
The addition of methyl groups (a carbon atom attached to three hydrogen atoms) to DNA is a particularly good indicator of age, as many salient physiological signs, such as tooth development, appear to occur in parallel with methylation levels in different species . Comparing methyl levels in the Labrador dog breed, for example, on the one hand, and humans on the other, the researchers came up with a formula by which they could draw a map of the dog’s age and compare it to the age of humans. . .
This formula, or equation, is denoted as follows: age corresponding to humans = 16 ˣ (chronological age of the dog) + 31. (In) here is an arithmetic operator known as the natural logarithm, which is known in non-uniform calculus of energy released from the Earth in earthquakes (expressed in Richter scale) or sound measurement (in decibels). And logarithmic arithmetic can help explain why we think age passes faster with age.
published photo, Getty Images
At eight years, a dog’s age corresponds to approximately 64 years of human life
The study shows that the dog reaches a steady speed at first and then slowly ages, which means that most of his life is spent in middle age.
For convenience, we say that the first year of a dog equals 31 human years, and then by doubling the chronological age of the dog, the corresponding increase in human years is 11. Thus, eight years represent three “many” (from one in two years, from two to four and from four to eight – three times) giving the dog on the other hand 64 years of human life.
Dog lovers should have realized that the correspondence between dog age and human age does not follow a regular line, as they notice that their dogs reach maturity much faster than assumed according to the linear coefficient of one to seven.
An adjustment was made to a factor of one to seven to suggest that each of the first two years of the dogs corresponds to 12 human years, while subsequent years are calculated versus four human years.
In practice, new molecular findings related to the age of dogs corresponding to humans – formulated by the aforementioned logarithmic rule – show that dogs age much faster than most owners think. Therefore, when you notice that your dog no longer cares to follow the ball as before, probably because he has grown up and crossed the stage and is no longer as he was known!