Department of Biology, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, AL, USA.
College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA.
Aging Cell. 2018 Jun;17(3):e12737. doi: 10.1111/acel.12737. Epub 2018 Feb 19.
Around the world, human populations have experienced large increases in average lifespan over the last 150 years, and while individuals are living longer, they are spending more years of life with multiple chronic morbidities. Researchers have used numerous laboratory animal models to understand the biological and environmental factors that influence aging, morbidity, and longevity. However, the most commonly studied animal species, laboratory mice and rats, do not experience environmental conditions similar to those to which humans are exposed, nor do we often diagnose them with many of the naturally occurring pathologies seen in humans. Recently, the companion dog has been proposed as a powerful model to better understand the genetic and environmental determinants of morbidity and mortality in humans. However, it is not known to what extent the age-related dynamics of morbidity, comorbidity, and mortality are shared between humans and dogs. Here, we present the first large-scale comparison of human and canine patterns of age-specific morbidity and mortality. We find that many chronic conditions that commonly occur in human populations (obesity, arthritis, hypothyroidism, and diabetes), and which are associated with comorbidities, are also associated with similarly high levels of comorbidity in companion dogs. We also find significant similarities in the effect of age on disease risk in humans and dogs, with neoplastic, congenital, and metabolic causes of death showing similar age trajectories between the two species. Overall, our study suggests that the companion dog may be an ideal translational model to study the many complex facets of human morbidity and mortality.
在过去的 150 年里，全球人口的平均预期寿命大幅增长，虽然人们的寿命延长了，但他们在患有多种慢性疾病的情况下度过的生命年数也更多了。研究人员已经使用了许多实验室动物模型来了解影响衰老、发病和寿命的生物和环境因素。然而，最常被研究的动物物种，即实验小鼠和大鼠，并不经历与人类所暴露的环境条件相似的环境条件，我们也不经常诊断它们患有许多在人类中自然发生的病理学。最近，伴侣犬被提议作为一种强大的模型，以更好地理解人类发病率和死亡率的遗传和环境决定因素。然而，尚不清楚人类和犬之间的发病率、合并症和死亡率的年龄相关动态在多大程度上是共享的。在这里，我们首次大规模比较了人类和犬类特定年龄发病率和死亡率的模式。我们发现，许多在人类中常见的慢性疾病（肥胖、关节炎、甲状腺功能减退和糖尿病），以及与合并症相关的疾病，也与伴侣犬中同样高的合并症水平相关。我们还发现，年龄对人类和犬类疾病风险的影响存在显著相似性，肿瘤、先天性和代谢性死亡原因在这两个物种之间具有相似的年龄轨迹。总的来说，我们的研究表明，伴侣犬可能是研究人类发病率和死亡率的许多复杂方面的理想转化模型。
