Veterinary Vertex

Scientific Insights into Dog Aging and Nutrition

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How do factors like dog size, reproductive status, and even owner income shape our furry friends' diets? Join us as we uncover the fascinating findings from the Dog Aging Project with experts Drs. Audrey Ruple and Janice O'Brien. You'll be surprised to learn about the widespread use of home-prepared diets and the minimal impact of owner income on dietary choices. Audrey shares her inspiring transition from cancer biology to aging research, revealing a wealth of untapped knowledge.

Looking to the future, this episode delves into the cutting-edge directions of canine nutrition research. Janice discusses the importance of cross-sectional studies and the quest to understand home-prepared diets better. We'll also touch on how veterinarians can play a crucial role in these studies, and the importance of blending academic training with hands-on experience. Don't miss out on this comprehensive look at evolving canine nutrition!

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Sarah Wright:

You are listening to Veterinary Vertex, a podcast of the AVMA Journals. In this episode we chat about how dog and owner demography impacts dietary choices in the Dog Aging Project Cohort, with our guests Janice O'Brien and Audrey Rupel.

Lisa Fortier:

Welcome to Veterinary Vertex. I'm Editor-in-Chief Lisa Fortier, and I'm joined by Associate Editor Sarah Wright. Today we have Janice and Audrey joining us. Hey you guys, thanks so much for being here with us today and taking time out of your busy schedule.

Audrey Ruple:

Thanks so much for having us.

Janice O'Brien:

Yes.

Sarah Wright:

So, let's dive right in. So, Audrey, your JAVMA article discusses how dog and owner demography impacts dietary choices in the Dog Aging Project Cohort. Please share with our listeners the background on the Dog Aging Project.

Audrey Ruple:

Sure, I'd be happy to. So. The Dog Aging Project is an NIH primarily an NIH-funded longitudinal study in a cohort of dogs. We currently have about 50,000 dogs enrolled across the United States, and we are continuing enrollment, so that number is still growing. We started enrollment at the end of 2019, so just prior to the COVID pandemic and it turned out, one of the sad upsides to COVID was people were at home with their dogs and in front of their computers, and so we ended up with a really large cohort. From a very early time point, once we opened the study, we've been collecting information about these dogs' entire life experiences, primarily through a series of surveys that are answered by their owners or their human companions, as I like to think of them, and part of that information includes their dietary choices, so what kinds of foods people are feeding their dogs, and this is something that's obviously of interest to Janice.

Janice O'Brien:

Yep, and so I kind of came on as Audrey's PhD student and I wanted to do diet studies within the dog aging project at the, you know, with an epidemiology focus, which is, I mean, what I was going to get my PhD in. So I guess how this paper in particular came about was like when an epidemiologist starts like writing their paper, they kind of always start with table one, which is this, you know, usually smaller table of the different demographic variables within the population that was being studied and, and maybe or maybe not, how the exposure variables were different between the different demographics.

Janice O'Brien:

And so.

Janice O'Brien:

I started doing that and the dog aging project has so many different demographic variables that it ended up being that this table, one kind of, was its own thing, and also because we found so many differences between the different demographic dog and owner demographics that we were like we got to talk about this, like this is something within its own that we need to talk about and let other people know about.

Sarah Wright:

Very cool. I always find it fascinating how one thing leads to another. So, thank you for sharing. And, Janice, what are some of the important take home messages from this JAVMA article?

Janice O'Brien:

So I think the big one is really that the majority of owners in general do feed their dogs kibble as their primary diet type. Now where in the country? That can range, but still the majority of people are feeding their dog kibble. And then in terms of home prepared diets, so both home raw diets and home cooked diets, they are also really really common. So they were more common than I think I was anticipating as a researcher to find them. And you know, between the differences in demographic variables that we did find, you know we found like, for example, the most extreme one was little dogs and big dogs. So dog size was really really important and I think that those types of factors are really interesting to the research that's already been done and then to future studies that either we or other researchers are going to conduct.

Lisa Fortier:

The horse rider reminds me of different disciplines, like what I do hunter, jumper. What do we believe? Compared to a thoroughbred racehorse or dressage. And that could be horse size too, but it's just, it's passed on from generation to generation of little dog and small dog and geographic demographic. It's fascinating, Audrey. What sparked your research interest in dog aging?

Audrey Ruple:

I actually came to dog aging as a research topic kind of tangentially. So after veterinary school I did a residency with a master's but then I ended up doing a PhD in cancer biology. So I'm a properly trained cancer epidemiologist in dogs, and obviously cancer, especially in our canine population, is closely related to age, and so really I kind of got into aging in a backwards direction, in that I was really specifically interested in that one outcome of aging, cancer, and ended up realizing just the wide depth of information that we have yet to really learn about aging, not just on a whole body level, so the phenotypic level, but really even deeply down at the cellular level. We still have a lot of questions left to solve and they're obviously closely related.

Lisa Fortier:

Yeah, you've got several lifetimes for you and Janice to solve all the aging problems or even find out what all the problems are. Janice earlier. Sarah asked you what are some of the most salient findings of your JAVMA article. What did you find was very surprising in your results?

Janice O'Brien:

I think there were two things that surprised me. Well, one was a presence and one was like an absence. So the uh. I think the most surprising finding I wasn't expecting was the neutered versus intact dogs having very different uh diet types that they were eating, um. So in general, your neutered dogs were much more likely to be eating uh kibble and canned diets and intact dogs had a much, much higher rate of eating raw diets, both commercial and home prepared raw diets. So that was not expected. And then I think the one thing that I was expecting that we didn't find was owner income levels did not really impact what owners were picking for their dog's diet, except for one very small group like over $180,000 income level, but that was it. Everybody else basically didn't have an impact.

Lisa Fortier:

Yeah, I guess the second one didn't surprise me, but the first one did the neutered versus intact, and maybe that speaks to marketing too. Now you'll look at all the commercials with a different lens. Janice, what are the next steps for research in this topic?

Janice O'Brien:

So I think there's kind of three main directions to talk about here. So, as originally mentioned, this was supposed to be a table one of a further study, and that further study was just doing a cross-sectional look at the different diet types and health outcomes, just to see, hey, if dogs eating one particular diet type seem to be experiencing more one particular health outcome more than any other diet types. And so that's that's the one one research. And then diving into those, uh, home prepared diets is actually something that I'm working on right now to see you know when an owner says I feed, I feed a home prepared diet. Like what does that? What does that actually look like? Like is, are they all feeding chicken and rice or table scraps or what is that? What is that?

Janice O'Brien:

And then, um, my actual thesis work that I'm really excited about is validating the questionnaire that the Dog Aging Project uses to collect this data and to see you know, when we ask owners what they remember feeding, is that what they actually typically do feed? And that's really really important work, just from you know, an epidemiology perspective, because we know from human epidemiology, nutrition, that sometimes people don't always either remember things appropriately or report things appropriately on a survey, like there's certain studies that say that certain questionnaires that don't accurately capture fruit and vegetable intake, for example, in people when they answer surveys.

Lisa Fortier:

Like going to your doctor and not being 100% truthful on how many times a week you exercise or how much alcohol do you drink

Janice O'Brien:

Exactly. Yes

Lisa Fortier:

I'll tee this up for either one of you. We see artificial intelligence, large language models, everywhere. Do you see a role for AI in this area of research?

Janice O'Brien:

So I guess, of course, as a person who likes to define things, I feel like it depends on what the AI is, because, like I mean, I used forms of machine learning to make this study. Like I used a program to calculate the chi square values for me for the tables. Like that's a form of, that's a form of AI. Technically doing that would be really really time consuming by hand, and so like, in terms of computational machine learning types of stuff, absolutely we are using it. It is wonderful, it's making our lives easier.

Janice O'Brien:

In terms of, like the generative AI that's becoming really popular in those sorts of things, like I don't know how useful it's going to be for this research, like if I ask a generative AI to make me a table, who knows what it's going to put in there? So, I don't, I don't know that I would trust that, but I am excited about some of the tools. Like I was just at a conference this weekend and somebody introduced something to me called lit maps, which is something that like if you put in one study, it'll tell it'll give you a map like a, like a diagram map of all the studies that either cited it or it cited and help you find kind of related works that you may not have otherwise found using other research tools. So, I think that was one really cool type of thing that I found I think could be useful in research.

Sarah Wright:

We use two really cool programs. One is called Altmetric and it tracks the online attention an article receives, so not traditional citations but pretty much everything else, including patents and policy documents. It's always fascinating to see the reach that research can have. And every article published in chat on AJVR gets its own little Altmetric badge, or the donut as I like to call it, because it's a circle with different colors and like indicating different things, like news, etc. So that's pretty cool. And then we also use dimensions, which actually does traditional citations and same thing. So, when your article gets cited, it'll get a badge showing the citations that have been performed using your work. So, a cool way to see the reach and impact and interconnectedness. And to our listeners just joining, we're discussing dog and owner demographics and diet choice with our guests Janice O'Brien and Audrey Ruppel. So, Janice, how did your training prepare you to write this manuscript?

Janice O'Brien:

So, I think there's different types of training in terms of, like there's the academic training and then there's also just the general life experience training, and I feel like the general life experience training set me up because it it helped me generate all the questions I thought I wanted to get answered in. In research, you know, either whether that was being you know in practice and just talking to people about what are you feeding your dog and I felt like I was I feel like I did notice different differences in where people, what people are feeding their dogs in like Texas versus in Virginia, um, and. But then in terms of actual academic training, I would say that you know, the program has provided me with a lot of um, really cool experiences to learn types of different types of um, epidemiology methods and things like that. So, both are really helpful, like real world experience and also the academia perspective.

Sarah Wright:

Yeah, sounds like the best of both worlds there. Now, this next set of questions is going to be very important for our listeners. The first one centers around the veterinarian. So what is one piece of information the veterinarian should know about dietary choices for dogs?

Janice O'Brien:

So I think for me, this article just really highlights the importance of knowing, like when we when there are studies, epidemiology studies that looked at differences between diet types and then they wanted to look at differences in health outcomes and that could be lots of different things Like I've seen some studies that are comparing like vegan diets to like non-vegan diets, you know, raw diets to non-raw diets. I think, just when you're a veterinarian and you're reading those, looking at them and saying, did they account for certain these certain demographic factors? Because if we want to compare those, ideally we want the populations to be the same and what we've shown is that different populations of dogs are eating different diets, so the comparison might not be fair. There's probably some bias already baked in there and if that wasn't accounted for in the study design or in the analysis part, like then it it probably needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

Janice O'Brien:

Now, I'm not, at the same time, not like trying to shame anyone here. Like a lot of like that's how epidemiology like starts looking into a topic, like when you're just looking hypothesis generating questions, you go, I'm just going to do some baseline odds ratios and see if I find anything interesting. But you know, as you, as more research gets done in the topic and you find out that that, yes, there are some sources of bias, then you know future works. Like you know, when you, when you are designing new things, then you have to take the new information into account. So I think that's what's important.

Sarah Wright:

And then on the other side of the relationship, what's one thing clients should consider around dietary choices for dogs.

Janice O'Brien:

And I think this one is harder to answer just from our study. I mean, there's lots more work that I'm looking into, but I just felt like in the space around this and when I was doing a lot of research, I just, I wish, I wish I could tell owners don't let anyone shame you about what you're feeding your dog Like. I see lots of sources like, like whether that be like pet food advertising or or, um, or like small groups that are like you need to feed your dog this Um. I just I would just say don't let anyone shame you, um, cause that's just not a great, a great place to come from and also balance it as a great tool. Um, if you are really um set on doing a home prepared diet, balance it is an amazing tool.

Lisa Fortier:

Very cool. I'll have to look at that. I didn't know about that resource. As we wind down, we ask a little more of a personal, fun question and Sarah and I always think we know what the answer is going to be, but then we were fooled just yesterday. We'll start with Audrey. Audrey, when you put a puzzle together, do you start with those exterior border pieces or are you an interior person and build like the cloud or the tree and then eventually get to the border?

Audrey Ruple:

I definitely start with the border pieces first.

Lisa Fortier:

Fascinating. Do you get in wars with anybody in your family?

Audrey Ruple:

No, I think I've. I mean I've trained my children to start with the borders. I think that then, how we sort out the interior pieces that's where the wars really break out is do you sort by color pattern or do you sort by the shape, like how many outie versus innie spots on the piece do you have?

Lisa Fortier:

oh, haven't heard that one before. It's almost always colors and patterns. My, my kids and I have to split time at the puzzle area. So, like early morning person, so I'll get up and do the border and then, you know, they'll get up and I'll be in the kitchen or something and then I'll see like, oh, the inside starts to come along, but the border didn't make any progress. How about you, Janice? Are you an outie or an innie?

Janice O'Brien:

I think I'm a weird combination of the two. So what I do first, like when I open the puzzle box, is I'll sort all of the pieces into piles and those piles will be based on something like if it's like a pattern or a color or something, but, or it could be that they're edge pieces, but I always end up with these like piles of different types, and then of the piles, the edge pieces will get put together. First, yeah, and then towards the end, what Audrey was saying, like the Audi versus the Innie, like those will be like. When you get to like the really difficult, like you're in a random section of like sky, I'll be like oh, this one's got two outies right here, got to look for those.

Lisa Fortier:

How you write your research, to like your lit program, like all these piles and then bring them together.

Janice O'Brien:

Yeah, I think that's how my brain works.

Lisa Fortier:

So I do too. I have piles everywhere and I'm like, okay, now that dives into this next section. Okay, okay, now that one goes over here.

Lisa Fortier:

Yeah, thank you guys. I learned a lot from your article and I look forward to a lot more from the Dog Aging Project. What a great idea.

Audrey Ruple:

Thanks again for having us.

Janice O'Brien:

Yeah, thank you.

Sarah Wright:

Yeah, it's always a pleasure reading your articles and just thank you again for being here today, just echoing what Lisa has said. We really appreciate it. And to our listeners, you can read Janice and Audrey's article in JAVMA. I'm Sarah Wright at Lisa Fortier. Be on the lookout for next week's episode and don't forget to leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts or whatever platform you listen to.

People on this episode

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Lisa Fortier, DVM, PhD, DACVS

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Sarah Wright, DVM

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