Drug that could extend your dog’s life is one step closer to becoming reality

Most dog owners wish their pets could live forever.

Brennen McKenzie, the Director of Veterinary Medicine at Loyal and Veterinarian at Adobe Animal Hospital, told “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio Thursday that his team is one step closer to bringing a life-extending drug for dogs to market.

“We’ve recently gotten an acceptance from the FDA of what’s called RXE, so that’s reasonable expectation of effectiveness,” McKenzie explained. “They have said that the evidence that we’ve shown them is convincing, that the drug we’re developing is reasonably likely to do what we want it to do, which is to give people more time with their dogs and give dogs a longer, healthier life.”

Delving into the ‘STAY study’

McKenzie said his team is running a large clinical study called the “STAY study” that will go for four years and have more than a thousand dogs.

“The largest and biggest clinical trial, I think, ever in veterinary medicine,” he noted. “And at the end of that, we’ll know a little bit more about exactly what we can accomplish. We do know that some of the other methods that have been used to improve metabolic and health in dogs, which is what our drug does, have extended lifespan by two or three years, which is 20% of a dog’s life expectancy. So we’ve set the study up to see, hopefully, in a four-year period, at least a one-year difference between the dogs getting the drug and the dogs on placebo. So we’re doing the science, and we’ll know more in a few years.”

What exactly does the drug do to a dog’s metabolism?

McKenzie said the process of aging in humans and dogs is very similar and that restricting calories improves metabolic health. However, he noted that restricting food from dogs is not fun, therefore, his team is trying to find a way to achieve the same process as caloric deficit.

“Food is love, right? So we were looking for ways to achieve the same benefits of caloric restriction without having to drastically reduce the the food intake that your dog gets, and that’s what this drug is designed to do,” McKenzie explained.

Overfeeding dogs is one of the largest drivers of bad health

“We love our pets to death, we overfeed them and that is a significant driver of aging and age-related disease,” he shared.

Then what’s the best food to feed your dog?

“So there are lots of good foods out there and I think that people should maybe take some of the pressure off themselves to find the right one because I don’t think there is a right one, a good, reliable, mainstream dog food, whether you know it’s fresh or canned or kibble, all can be OK but we really have to practice a little tough love and not give too much,” McKenzie said.

To listen to the full conversation, click the player below:

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