Boosting Pet Longevity and Creating a Healthier Lifespan: A Deep Dive into Anti-Aging and Wellness Strategies with Dr. Heather Oxford

Want to discover the recipe for your pet's long and healthy life? In the episode I am joined by one of my favorite people., Dr. Heather Oxford, a diplomat to the American Board of Anti-Aging Health Practitioners and an esteemed holistic veterinarian. Together, we peel back the layers on pet health, longevity, and anti-aging, laying bare the similarities between human and pet health standards and chronic diseases. We delve into proactive health and wellness, and the pivotal role it plays in a healthier health span for our cherished four-legged friends, potentially saving you from unforeseen financial strife down the line.

In this episode we cover topics such as :

• Diet and Excercise
• Mindful spaying and neutering
• Circadian Rhythm 
• Thermal Regulation 
• Supplements to support a healthier lifespan

Useful Links:
https://leapyears.com/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Dogs make the best companions for humans. This podcast aims to help make humans better companions for their dogs. Welcome to the Baroo Podcast, a modern lifestyle podcast for dogs and their people. I'm your host, charlotte Bain. I've been caring for other people's dogs for more than 15 years and, while I've learned a lot in my career, I definitely don't know at all. So I've collected an ever-evolving roster of amazing dog people and I learn new things from them all the time. Hi, you guys, thank you so much for joining me for this episode of the Baroo Podcast.

Speaker 1: 0:48

In this episode, I am joined by one of my favorite people, dr Heather Oxford. Dr Oxford is a renowned holistic veterinarian and she has also recently become a diplomat to the national practitioners of anti-aging. She is back to discuss the secrets to longevity and a healthy lifespan in our pups. Turns out, you guys, it's not much different for our pups than it is for us humans. We discuss everything from diet and exercise, thermal regulation, circadian rhythm and even hormones. Alright, you guys, let's jump into this chat. So nice to see you again. I know I see you on a regular basis, but it's exciting to have you back on the podcast. I know it's great to be back. Thank you. Well, congratulations are in order for you, because you recently became a diplomat to the American Board of Anti-Aging Health Practitioners. Is that correct? Thank you so much. Yes, it is so. Does that encompass pets and people, or is that just?

Speaker 2: 1:51

That's actually a human certification.

Speaker 1: 1:54

Oh, okay, cool.

Speaker 2: 1:55

Yeah, yeah, but everything that I have learned through that I can apply to pets, to pets.

Speaker 1: 2:03

That's very exciting. Why is that, can I ask?

Speaker 2: 2:06

Yeah, well, a lot of the research that is behind the human integrative and functional medicine is actually based on animals, and so it's very easy to extrapolate and translate a lot of this data into our companion animals.

Speaker 1: 2:25

Is that because they live alongside us and share our lives, or is that? Why can that be applied to our companion animals?

Speaker 2: 2:36

Yeah, exactly. Well, a lot of different animal models have been studied in anti-aging research, but really companion dogs are probably the best species that we could be studying anti-aging in, because they do as you said, live right alongside us. They are exposed to practically everything we're exposed to every single day. So they're in our yards. If we have chemicals in our yards, they're going to be exposed to those same exact chemicals A lot of times. Our pets are eating some of the very same foods that we're eating on a daily basis. They are experiencing so many of the very same lifestyle factors. If we are exercising many times, our pets are exercising with us. Vice versa, they're getting basically a very similar standard of healthcare that we are. No other animal species can really boast that claim. I mean dogs and cats share virtually so many of the same standards of health that we do and also, interestingly enough, the same top non-communicable or chronic diseases that humans suffer from as we get older. They're the same ones that our animals suffer from as well.

Speaker 1: 4:08

Oh, interesting, I didn't know, that. What would some of the we can jump into that. So today, just for the listeners, since we just jumped right in, we are talking about longevity and anti-aging in our pets and, dr Heather, you just finished a lecture with the American Holistic Veterinary Medical Association. You were one of the lecturers there. That's pretty fantastic. I had the pleasure of listening to those lecturers. You sent them to me because I asked for them. I'm just going to say right here that they were way over my head, sorry.

Speaker 1: 4:45

They were super interesting, but they were way too scientific for me and so I found myself tuning out a little bit. So I would love to be able to talk about anti-aging and longevity in a way that pet parents can understand yeah, absolutely, and how we can be proactive with that and why it's important to be proactive with the health and wellness and the longevity of our pets. Because one thing that did stuff, one thing that stood out with me is I think that you mentioned the financial burden of our aging pets and how, if we become more proactive in creating a healthier health span versus a lifespan which we're going to get into, it can be beneficial for our wallet. I guess we're not going to face some of those really heavy veterinary costs that we can get later on in the life. I mean, I have a 16-year-old dog, so the later in life.

Speaker 2: 5:51

Exactly.

Speaker 1: 5:52

So well, let's just jump in, yeah okay, sounds good.

Speaker 2: 5:55

Charlotte, thanks for listening to my lectures. It sounds like you took away from it, it's three hours? Yeah, I know, or at least they were with helping you go to sleep.

Speaker 1: 6:09

I don't know. No, it was. I'm going to say it was really informative and pretty amazing. I just didn't understand a lot of what you were talking about, just because I didn't have the language you know, right.

Speaker 2: 6:21

But I love how interested.

Speaker 1: 6:23

I love how interested the other veterinarians are in this and how it's kind of at the forefront of healthcare, right yeah it really is.

Speaker 2: 6:34

It is the junction of really one health. I mean, it's multi-species health and research. It's conventional plus holistic health. It's everything combined. It's a lot of upper-level biology as well. So I'm going to try to do my best to boil that down to make it understandable to the average pet parent who really wants to do the best they can for their pets, because, as you said, charlotte, it's really I mean, some of this stuff.

Speaker 2: 7:17

It could involve a little bit of a financial investment right into our upfront, but the goal is to invest in our pet's health and longevity and be as proactive and preventative as we can throughout their lives so that as they become adults and into their geriatric years, they are experiencing fewer chronic health issues. And so, yes, that's where we should experience lighter financial burden. So one of the main reasons why there's been this explosion in anti-aging research on the human side is because billions of dollars have been put into this research, because world leaders are now understanding that we are really facing a crisis in human health, because our lifespan globally is extending, which is a great thing. However, simultaneous to that, we also have, for the first time in our history, the lowest birth rate, and so we have fewer people being born and a growing population of more geriatric or aged people living longer, and about 80% of the last years of our life we're experiencing this health span lifespan gap, and that's what you touched on. How do we maximize our health span?

Speaker 2: 9:00

Well, first I'm going to define health span. So health span is really the years that we live with quality health, and so what all of us really want for ourselves and for our pets is the longest health span possible. I mean we should be doing everything we can to stay young as long as possible and out of chronic disease for as long as possible, and to only really experience chronic disease if we have to for a very short amount of time, and so that's really the goal of longevity medicine is to maximize our health span so that we have a shorter amount of time lived in this health span lifespan gap where we're experiencing chronic disease, and so that's where we could really start to see a lighter financial burden, less financial burden in managing these chronic diseases. I mean we're talking trillions of dollars spent every year just in the US managing these top four chronic diseases, and in veterinary medicine we have seen just in the past year, annual veterinary costs literally almost double, and we are.

Speaker 1: 10:23

Yes, I have noticed that, yeah.

Speaker 2: 10:24

Yeah, and one of the reasons why I love this is because, looking at the numbers and doing some of my research, I actually saw that inflation has literally doubled in the past two years in veterinary expense.

Speaker 2: 10:39

Right, okay, so there's not much we can do about that, because the whole world has experienced that increase in inflation. But one of the factors that we can start to control is how much money has to be spent on chronic disease management. It's like in human health our pets we can do better and as vets we want to do better. But it is going to start with the more education we can get for our pet parents to know that it's not just supplements and medicine that help with improving our pet's health span. We have to start with a foundation of good lifestyle factors for our pets, and that's where pet parents can have all the control, and a lot of this stuff costs no money. So we Okay, you know there's not much financial investment up front to get good lifestyle factors, except that we do probably need to spend a considerable amount on what we're feeding our pets, because that is really the foundation for everything. Yes, good nutrition is the baseline, I mean it's the same for us, right.

Speaker 1: 11:58

It is, it's the same for humans, yeah Right.

Speaker 2: 12:00

Yeah, I mean we could get by on eating very inexpensive, cheap food, but unfortunately that food tends to have the highest calorie content and the lowest nutritional value, and so we're really. We might be saving a few bucks on the forefront, but on the back end, when you look long-term, we're setting ourselves up for more chronic health issues. So right, it's the same thing for our pets.

Speaker 1: 12:29

Yeah, exactly. So what are those top you were saying? You mentioned the top four issues. What are those top four issues that we have in common with our pets, or that our pets have in common with us?

Speaker 2: 12:41

Yeah, so the top things are going to In humans it's cardiovascular disease. This is the number one thing that we do, that we struggle with with morbidity and mortality in humans, and then we also are struggling with diabetes and cancer and arthritis, and these are the same top diseases that our pets are struggling with for morbidity, which means chronic disease that we live with, but also mortality, things that actually kill our pets. Arthritis doesn't kill us, we don't get euthanized, but our pets with really long-term, severe arthritis many times, unfortunately, this is one of the top killers of our pets.

Speaker 1: 13:32

How and why is that?

Speaker 2: 13:35

But by far and away the number one.

Speaker 1: 13:37

Yeah, why is it one of the top killers of our pets? Because they lose mobility. And then people, yeah.

Speaker 2: 13:42

So it's actually a broader category of disease. That is one of the top four things that causes mortality in our dogs. It's a category called considered old age and it encompasses arthritis and neuromuscular decline. And so, as our pets and many times we can trace back these pets that are suffering with bad arthritis or neuro decline Many times, if you look back earlier, they were obese or overweight, maybe suffering from poor nutrition. Poor nutrition is equivalent to poor nutrition and so if they're overweight or not getting the best diet maybe the diet is inflammatory, it has a lot of carbohydrates, not the best protein sources, that kind of thing then they are set up for developing arthritis when they become adults, experiencing the symptoms of that arthritis when they become adult, pediatric, and that's going to yes, just as you said, it's going to limit their mobility, their quality of life starts to decline, and so many pet owners are faced with the prospect of having to euthanize their pets for this reason.

Speaker 2: 15:06

And but it's not just that, it's also cardiovascular is a big one, for pets as well Invent particular diseases than humans suffer with with cardiovascular, but it's still the same category of disease, and cancer is about 50% of cause of mortality in pets. So it's really unfortunate. But many of these things we can help to prevent by providing our pets and ourselves with the right kind of lifestyle factors from birth and then as we get older, into our adult years and geriatric. That's when we can start to use, like nutraceutical supplements, which are that's another term for dietary supplements that aren't FDA approved drugs, so they're not prescription, they're over the counter. So these are supplements you know, give to your pets and to ourselves. And then there are some pharmaceutical or FDA approved products that can help with longevity as well.

Speaker 1: 16:18

Can we jump back really quickly? You mentioned diabetes. I don't know of any dogs. Do dogs get diabetes like humans do?

Speaker 2: 16:26

So diabetes. So for dogs it's the category of disease that diabetes would be endocrine. So endocrine is another category that causes a lot of morbidity and mortality in dogs and cats, and so you've probably heard of Cushing's disease. This is another endocrine disease, diabetes in dogs. It's usually insulin dependent, which is a little different from what most humans suffer from. A lot of humans are suffering from type two diabetes, which is mostly dietary. You can control it using dietary modifications, but our pets can develop, you know that, like a dietary form of, like pre-diabetes as well, that we can help a lot with with the diet.

Speaker 1: 17:24

And what does that look like in a pet? What does diabetes look like in a pet? Yeah, what does diabetes look like, how does it present itself in a pet? Yes, it does. Yes, we do that Probably. So what do you think about that?

Speaker 2: 17:31

My thoughts or so in most pets they're going to be. They're going to develop insulin dependent diabetes, and so it can look like, you know, increased thirst, increased, so increased drinking, and then increased urination. It can look like weight loss. Less commonly you can see rapid weight gain with it though. So a weight shift and, you know, decreased energy level. They might be eating more, but they're still losing weight. That's a big indication, because they're intaking the sugar source, but because they're not producing the same, the normal amount of insulin, their body can't accept the sugar, and so they're actually losing weight, even though they might be eating the same or even more than they were before.

Speaker 1: 18:29

I remember we I do remember we thought that Loki one of my clients might, I think it was back in the day when he was was not putting on weight and we couldn't figure out why. We thought we talked about that, I think, but you thought maybe he was too young for that.

Speaker 2: 18:45

A couple other forms, and there's a couple other forms of diabetes too that can contribute just to, you know, a problem with water retention, which I think we were suspecting in that case as well. Mm-hmm, yeah, so a little different because that one's not reliant on insulin, right, but but yeah, so it's interesting because these pets are suffering from the exact same types of diseases that humans are in their old years and usually experiencing the same exact lifestyle factors that their humans are.

Speaker 2: 19:24

You know, because the pets are aging five to 10 times faster than the human. You can see it, you see the problems start to mount a lot faster. So they're kind of like, you know, the, the, the sentinel, or like the canary in the coal mines, so to speak. For us, you know, and I've had a lot of clients that actually develop the exact same medical issues that their pets have developed. So it's, I see that, a lot. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 19:55

So like if it's, but like later on down the line, or like like if their pets are kind of the window into what their future health might look like as they age. Yeah, I know but I have seen it.

Speaker 2: 20:08

I have seen humans be diagnosed around the same time as their pets, which is really wild.

Speaker 1: 20:16

So you mentioned a lot of these diseases you really talked about. You know what we eat. We've talked about this on what our pups eat and we've talked about this on the podcast. What, in your findings, has shown to be the most beneficial, if so, like diet for our pups? If anything has shown to provide the biggest benefits for our pups, okay.

Speaker 2: 20:40

So there's actually a handful of lifestyle factors that are beneficial for longevity for ourselves. In pets those are diet, exercise, actually thermal regulation and exposure.

Speaker 1: 20:59

Is that like cold lunges yeah?

Speaker 2: 21:00

exactly, is that a cold versus hot, interesting Yep and you know sleep and circadian rhythm and then also exposure to sex hormones.

Speaker 1: 21:16

Yeah, okay, so for our. I just had Dr Karen Tobias on when we talked about so spaying, right exactly.

Speaker 2: 21:23

Yeah, so these are the big top five factors that pet parents really have a lot of control over for their pets and for ourselves. But you know, so diet by far and away is the number one most important of these lifestyle factors. And, interestingly enough, a lot of the longevity supplements that are out there, and some of the even pharmaceutical grade, are actually caloric restriction memetics, which is a fancy word, for they fake your body into thinking that you're on a diet.

Speaker 1: 22:06

So so Is that like fasting? Have fasting in fashion for some? Yeah, exactly Right. I don't know if I get it right, so with diet okay.

Speaker 2: 22:18

so let's break down diet for a second, because it's the one thing and you know this is. I would say, if you take away nothing else I want pet parents to take away from this that there are two aspects of diet that we need to work on for our pets and for ourselves Quantity and quality. Okay, so, starting with quantity, there was a big study in Labrador Retrievers that looked at littermates, pups that were. Half of them were divided into a group that got free, fed a kibble. The other half of them and these are littermates, so sharing the same genetic factors the other half of them were restricted calorically by about 25% and they found that the littermates that were calorically restricted lived almost two years longer than their littermates that did not receive caloric restriction.

Speaker 2: 23:27

And in the littermates that were calorically restricted they actually had a delay in onset of aging related diseases, including arthritis. So in that group that were just calorically restricted by 25%, that means, you know, if their littermates were fed 1,000 calories a day, these pets were fed 750. So just by limiting the calories they were able to live longer and actually live healthier. So it's actually a lot of. It has to do with triggering the, triggering a couple proteins in our body to upregulate themselves to then inhibit another protein that left unchecked. This protein called mTOR will speed up aging. So we're basically so by dieting we're helping the anti-aging proteins to inhibit the pro-aging proteins.

Speaker 1: 24:42

Got it.

Speaker 2: 24:43

Yeah, yeah, and so that's where a lot of the supplements that we have are actually upregulating these anti-aging proteins, and so they're able to slow down the process of aging. Okay, yeah. Now what's interesting is, though, that in the newest findings, they're finding that, with the health of the microbiome, sometimes this can be, sometimes caloric restriction can actually hinder the health of the microbiome, because you might be feeding a less robust or less variety in your diet, because you're cutting the calories out, and so a lot of the new research is actually showing that much of the benefits of caloric restriction actually can be achieved just through fasting, and fasting is a much easier way to do this, because you can still have your full caloric intake, but you're just limiting the number of hours that you eat in a day. So instead of, for example, maybe eating for like 12 hours, eating from like 8 am to 8 pm, you might limit yourself to only eating from like noon until 8 pm, and that can help your body to achieve the same effects in slowing down aging. And same thing with our pets.

Speaker 2: 26:15

Actually, there is dog aging project out of the university, yeah, yeah, and so that was one of the major findings. They were looking at their database of dogs, that's I believe it was over 14,000 dogs for this particular study and they showed that once daily feeding was beneficial for longevity and decreased the risk of a whole host of aging related diseases in their dogs. Interesting, okay, yeah, now we can't. Obviously it's hard for certain age dogs and also size dogs to try to eat their entire caloric content in one meal. It wouldn't be healthy, for example, for like a great dain or like a large breed puppy, right, yeah, so we have to do this in moderation. But we can definitely achieve fasting for like an eight hour window, right, we can definitely like feed dogs only from noon until eight. Or, for an example, we can do two meals in there but then have them have a long window of time where they are fasted overnight, okay.

Speaker 1: 27:31

Yeah, that's kind of what we do, that's kind of what Chance and I do just in general these days, because he doesn't generally want his. He doesn't want his breakfast first thing in the morning anymore, which I know is common in a super senior but so we usually feed him around 11 and then. I feed him again at four, and then that's pretty much, unless I feed him some of my dinner. But you know.

Speaker 2: 28:01

But it still gives a good chunk of my own factors, exactly.

Speaker 1: 28:04

We definitely share the same lifestyle factor, yup, but hey, I'm going to take it. He's almost, he'll be 16 in two months and he's still going strong, so I'm going to. I think that's 99 in dog years, right? So I'm going to from the new calculation.

Speaker 2: 28:17

Yeah, you're doing it right, Charlotte?

Speaker 1: 28:19

So hopefully that says something for me. I don't know. Anyway, continue Diggers, right yeah.

Speaker 2: 28:30

So I mean that's the quantity aspect of diet, and then quality is another big, big aspect of it. I mean we don't want to be, you know, eating fast food for eight hours and then fasting and like or do we. And calling it a day and thinking that we're doing a great job, yeah, so somebody out there.

Speaker 1: 28:51

so thank you for clarifying, because somebody out there is going to take this information and be like oh, I can eat whatever I want for eight hours and then Right exactly.

Speaker 2: 29:01

Yeah, okay, yeah. So we look at, you know, for quality. We look at what is whole foods, real foods, versus processed, or the acronym that I love is crap food, which stands for calorically dense, refined and processed. So oh yeah, there you go, there you go, yep, so crap food. What qualifies as crap food is if you look at the ingredients list and you don't know how to pronounce some of the ingredients Right, you can't find the ingredients Right. A lot of things that say hydrolyzed on there. That's going to be ultra processed, okay.

Speaker 1: 29:56

And what about? I'm just going to jump in there really quickly and say because I know hydrolyzed for dogs, like you can do like a hydrolyzed protein if they have super allergies, can we comment on that or that might. So you know, how does that factor into being eating healthy? Or I think pet parents who have dogs with allergies might be like oh wait, but this is hydrolyzed protein. That I'm doing.

Speaker 2: 30:20

Okay, yeah, yeah, no, I think it's really germane to the conversation. So the hydrolyzed diets sometimes I think they are necessary for individual pets. I have used them in my practice when necessary and temporarily Okay. So for individual pets who have experienced really acutely inflammatory conditions in their gut and they've become sensitized to several food ingredients. Anytime, these pets just cannot eat regular food, at least for a time until you repair the gut and you repair the microbiome, and then in most cases I've been able to get these dogs onto some form of real food, got it. So hydrolyzed proteins and, you know, commercialized like kibble diets are just by nature processed. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 31:27

Convenience.

Speaker 2: 31:28

Yeah, yes, it's convenience, and the nice thing is that they are balanced, and so we know that. You know the dogs are getting the basic nutrients that they need on a daily basis and so, and I think in you know, in individual cases sometimes they're absolutely necessary. However, in the majority of cases, we can, you know, use them temporarily and then try to move away from them. Okay, To do something that has a little bit higher quality nutrition for the pet.

Speaker 1: 32:03

Like real food.

Speaker 2: 32:04

Real food.

Speaker 1: 32:07

Would like a freeze dried, because that's often with that factor into that. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 32:13

That would be a kind of real food. Yeah, okay, yeah, this content make it process? No, yeah. So you just want to move away from things that have a lot of like gumming agents or bulking agents, you know. So you want to try to look for more real, recognizable ingredients to know that you're getting good quality in the diet. And it does need to have a statement on the product that it has been balanced to meet the nutritional needs of all life stages. So that is an important statement to look for on your food. But I try to get and every patient is different, but I try to recommend either a lightly cooked or raw type that is completely balanced. It can be frozen, it can be freeze, dried, it could be dehydrated, air dried. Those are all okay, but I don't, you know, I try to discourage lifelong use of a kibble or canned diet because they do tend to be ultra processed.

Speaker 1: 33:30

Got it.

Speaker 2: 33:33

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 33:34

And the other things that you want to look for in the diet is the fiber content, because fiber is really important for the microbiome and microbiome function is really important for slowing down aging.

Speaker 2: 33:50

Disbiosis or microbiome imbalance is one of the key hallmarks of aging, and so if we can do our best to keep that microbiome balanced throughout life, we're going to be able to help to slow down aging and keep that pet or human more healthy. And also I think we touched on this a little bit but carbohydrates. So we do know that carbohydrates have a high glycemic load or high glycemic index, and so in the body that is generation of sugar, and so that is not helpful. As we age, especially sugar in our body is actually stimulating that pro aging protein that speeds up the aging clock. So we want to do our best to restrict sugar, especially as we age. But hopefully, when we're young we're setting down, we're laying down good nutritional habits that are low sugar, low carb, so that we can maintain a healthy level of low inflammation in our body. And same goes for our pets the more carbohydrates we feed them, the more they're going to be predisposed to inflammatory based chronic diseases such as arthritis.

Speaker 1: 35:16

Same as people.

Speaker 2: 35:17

Yes, same as people and pet parents might be like well, my dog's not eating spaghetti every day, so they're fine. But the tricky thing is pet food labels do not have to list carbohydrates. If you look on any pet food, guaranteed analysis it's probably not going to show the carbohydrates, and this is problematic because most kibble foods have a minimum of 40% of carbohydrates in their foods. When we look at the nutritional needs of dogs, and especially cats, they don't need that high carbohydrate load, and so if they're eating a commercial diet like that every single day for every meal of their lives, we are unfortunately contributing to their inflammatory load.

Speaker 1: 36:16

Okay, got it. Do they need any carbohydrates?

Speaker 2: 36:21

Some carbs are helpful, so what we talk about is tolerable carbohydrate loads. So, in nature, dogs would be omnivorous, and so they would be consuming some amount of carbohydrates, likely on a daily basis. Cats, though? Cats are obligate carnivores. They're really not going you're not going to see them in a field bunching on corn or wheat, so you know. So in cats they're actually less tolerant of carbohydrates, and we actually know from research that we can help cats with diabetes by lowering their carbohydrate intake in their food.

Speaker 1: 37:12

We've talked about diet. Exercise is also important and it's on the list of like the top five lifestyle factors, and I remember actually another thing that I took away from your seminar was that in Germany they have like a mandatory two you have to walk your dog for two hours every day, which is wonderful, I guess, like you know, one hour in the morning, one hour at night, and I think that's fantastic, you know, let's touch on that really quickly.

Speaker 2: 37:40

Yeah, so exercise. We know from various human studies and also animal studies that exercise not only prevents us from becoming frail, which you know contributes to a lot of mobility decline, but it also maintains our cognitive capacity and our cognitive function. That's preserved by performing, you know, exercise every day and so, yeah, what's interesting is that in Germany they passed this law where pet owners have to walk their dogs for two hours a day. When they get fined I'm not sure how big the fines are, but it is. You know, that's going to encourage a lot of people to get out there and get healthier, and I almost wonder if part of the impetus in implementing this kind of a law was for the humans right.

Speaker 1: 38:36

Yeah, yeah, get outside and walk around, yeah, so move your body, yeah.

Speaker 2: 38:43

Because in studies of elderly people, we do know that pet ownership helps delay frailty and keeps the human, yeah, both stronger and more agile, but also more cognitively competent for longer. So, and the same thing happens in our pets Another of the dog aging project also found that, you know, exercise was related to cognitive decline inversely. So the more exercise the pet had had throughout life or was currently having was directly related to a lower cognitive decline score. So basically, these pets who were more active also had better cognitive abilities and vice versa, the pets who were less active had more cognitive decline. And so we do know that exercise works for people and for animals, for preserving our brains. We also know that.

Speaker 1: 39:58

I need to tell that to my mom, because my mom it's like debating and getting up. I worried that a dog would like trip her and make her fall. But she, if we get the right size dog, she, you know, she's always had dogs her whole life and she, you know, she lives alone now and she's eating too and she keeps talking about wanting to get a dog. But I do think it would be just so keep her moving, keep her moving, keep her talking and keeping her, you know right.

Speaker 1: 40:24

Now I can back that up. Yeah, you can, proving that I'm going to have you call her. What do you call my mom Tell?

Speaker 2: 40:30

her, okay, hi.

Speaker 1: 40:31

Charlotte's mom, dr Heather, here Get a dog.

Speaker 2: 40:35

lady Right, get a dog. We can find her, the right we could find. I'm going to try to prescribe a dog, but we could find the appropriate dog for her.

Speaker 1: 40:43

Absolutely.

Speaker 2: 40:44

It might take some time, but yeah, okay.

Speaker 1: 40:46

Yeah, but it also helps us preserve our muscle strength and function, and same for our dogs. I mean start with the dog.

Speaker 2: 40:58

I mean sarcopenia is a term for the age related loss of muscle. So exercise does preserve the muscle function and strength in both humans and animals and helps with our endurance as well, which helps with cardiovascular health. And so you know, exercise is just. There's a. There are a couple different methods of exercise that we should be implementing for ourselves and our pets on a regular basis, and so vet rehab experts, you know, when they weigh in on this, it's definitely we do. We need to do a combination of endurance and cardio activities, but we also need to maintain muscle strength with some strengthening exercises as well. And so you know, so good examples of strengthening exercises would be actually things like tug-of-war or like dog to dog or dog to dog. So when they're playing and rough hounsel, they're actually like, yeah, they're crouching, they're jumping. It's, you know, like lunging tends to be like, yeah, lunging a little bit more like explosive activities that they're not going to do if they're just out on a walk with you, and so that and dog to dog interactions has also been shown to help dogs preserve cognitive function as they get older as well. So they need to be social with their own species as well.

Speaker 2: 42:44

And then the endurance or cardio aspect. This is really walks like 20 to 25 minute walks. Three to five times a week is baseline minimum. We are all obviously going to do better if we are going to be able to do better, if we get more than that, but a lot of people have very busy lives and you know. So if you can squeeze in 20 to 25 minute walk, I think I think you're winning, you're doing a good job. And so the other aspect, looking at blue zones. Blue zones, I actually did.

Speaker 1: 43:27

I watched the blue zone and I found it fascinating. And someone said one of my clients said to brought the blue zones up and he said that's why chances do. He's like. I'm not worried about you, you like live a blue zone lifestyle.

Speaker 1: 43:39

I'm like he's like and he's like, and except for the bags of tortilla chips that eat every day. But he, but he mentioned, he mentioned, he said that's why chances, chance does so well, because he, he lives the blue zone lifestyle, because he has such a thriving social life he has yeah, he has a whole life, he has purpose Right. He he's always eating whole foods. You know he doesn't drink wine. He saves that part for me, but no, and that was actually my biggest takeaway from the blue zone was that you can actually have wine, so that wine is okay.

Speaker 1: 44:15

Cause we go back and forth yeah, back and forth about wine.

Speaker 2: 44:18

Exactly, I think I'm not really to give up my glass of wine. Let's repeat that for your. Let's repeat that for your listeners the dogs should not have wine. No, dogs.

Speaker 1: 44:27

We know grapes are very toxic to dogs. So that's right. No wine, yep, yeah, there we go. That's right, took the wrong thing away from there. But you can enjoy wine while staring at your dog, yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:38

Yes, you could enjoy wine while taking your dog for a walk. How about that?

Speaker 1: 44:44

In some cities I think, open container to law. Right there you go Um the blue zone with you. Anyway, back to the blue zone. You brought it up and I interrupt you. Yeah, oh, no, yeah.

Speaker 2: 44:58

I was just going to say regarding the blue zones is that they, when they studied these people who were living to well over a hundred years old in these zones, these five zones around the world, um, which one of them is right here in California, um, but one of the common factors was that these people were active every hour. Every hour, they would just get up and move. A lot of people have desk jobs or you're, you're working from home and you are sitting at your desk for hours. Your dog is sitting in the bed for hours, right, yeah? So every hour, just try to get up and walk through. You know, walk through your home, yeah.

Speaker 1: 45:39

Um, you don't have to go to the bathroom. Your dog would get up and follow you, for sure. Exactly, yeah, it can be very, very moving.

Speaker 2: 45:45

Yeah Right, Just get your dog moving. So I think the thing that I would like to do is I think I think it's more about the ability of my clients with older dogs that it's harder for them to walk for like 20 to 25 minutes, and so I I say, you know, it doesn't have to be a big long 20 to 25 minute walk all in one go, Do two or three little five to 10 minute walks. That's just as good for them, Um, and in many cases it's better because they're moving more frequently. So you have to do a 25 minute walk, but just do something frequently throughout your day, and that is a key aspect of exercise. That um segues nicely into circadian rhythm, because the more active you are through the day, you're actually going to be able to sleep better throughout your night. And so you mentioned chance. Charlotte, like chance, is having um less appetite in the morning, which I see nine times out of 10.

Speaker 2: 46:50

Yeah, yeah, but this is this is a really common finding in nine out of 10, I would say of my older patients that their appetite for morning time meals starts to, starts to wane a little bit, and um many times I find that it is linked with the quality of sleep that they're getting. And so one um one, one of those lifestyle factors that we mentioned that is pro longevity is circadian rhythm, and so that is keeping awake, keeping active, doing all of your eating, all of your working out during daytime hours, and then when that sun goes down, you should be winding down as well. Your pet should be winding down, and so it's okay to take a nighttime walk. That's not what I'm saying, but, you know, not do like a huge meal at night or not do like a huge workout at night before bed. It's not the best for our circadian rhythm. So if we can be winding down and getting to bed and then trying to shoot, you know, for like an eight hour rest for ourselves and our pets, um, and our adrenal glands are able to manufacture that cortisol, that stress hormone, throughout the night, so that the level of our cortisol is highest in the morning when we're waking up, and that cortisol is useful to us to manage our morning and daytime stress so that we can actually function well and have a good mood, be ready to take on our day.

Speaker 2: 48:33

What's happening if we're not getting good sleep or we're not getting restful sleep like? So, say say, we drank that glass of wine at like 11 o'clock, maybe we had some nachos with it. We're probably not going to get a good deep sleep because that's going to disturb our circadian rhythm, and then we're going to wake up and we're not going to have that cortisol that we need. So we're going to feel kind of crummy. So, um, you know, then we're going to be tired throughout our day, we might not be as active throughout our day. It sets us up for a vicious cycle of then another night of great sleep. So, yeah, if we can do our things stay active.

Speaker 1: 49:12

Yeah, I definitely think, as far as chance is concerned, that the definitely the night. He is kind of being a little restless in the middle of the night and I think these days and I it comes and goes, but I do, I think, uh, I think it's he's just uncomfortable and I don't know if I need to get him a new bed or if it's just his old bones or if it's he's itchy, you know or something, but I do feel him. I do think he gets up and moves around and then that is affecting his. He's not getting as solid of a sleep.

Speaker 2: 49:42

Yeah, and then he's um.

Speaker 1: 49:45

So he's not like walking around, he's just moving around a lot Like he can't get comfortable. So I don't know.

Speaker 2: 49:50

I'm not there. We'll look into that one. It happens a lot. It happens a lot with aging and, um, you know it is, it is recognized in human health, um, as you know, uh, varying degrees of a sundowner syndrome, where you're a little bit more activated at nighttime, so there's restlessness and maybe some anxiety, maybe some vocalization at night, um, that you wouldn't really be seeing during the daytime.

Speaker 2: 50:22

And it one, um hormone that is really helpful in regulating circadian rhythm is melatonin and has just various different activities in the body in addition to circadian rhythm, which makes it a incredibly important hormone and we can actually supplement it. I generally recommend supplementing some melatonin in my older patients that are starting to have a little bit of that sleep wake disturbance, um, and so a little bit of melatonin at bedtime can help them get really nice, restful sleep and then, if they have a little bit you know more cortisol um production during the nighttime, most of the time they're waking up feeling better and sometimes even even having a little bit better appetite for the morning.

Speaker 1: 51:18

What? How much melatonin should I be doing?

Speaker 2: 51:21

Typical. Yeah, a typical dog dose is between two and six milligrams about 30 minutes before bedtime. Okay, and I like to start at the, at the lower dose. I with everything I try to do, lowest, yeah, so hmm.

Speaker 1: 51:37

So he's 54 pounds, so it doesn't matter on the size of the dog.

Speaker 2: 51:41

Yeah, I would still start him at two milligrams and see how that affects him.

Speaker 1: 51:47

Okay, interesting, okay, yeah, so, and back to the walking really quickly. And that doesn't mean, like you, it doesn't have to do sniffy walks, or that? Is that included in after you, or is that like, because you know sniffy walks are very important in all the rage now, so it's not like you have to be like booking it and like getting your cardiovascular up while you're walking and dog, you can also just do this, yeah right, dr, right.

Speaker 2: 52:14

Yeah, the sniffary Dr Becker's from the forever book, forever dog.

Speaker 1: 52:20

Oh, yeah, yeah, oh, that was our first podcast. Episode was take your dog on the sniffary first podcast.

Speaker 2: 52:29

Awesome.

Speaker 1: 52:30

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 52:32

So those are great because those are mental stimulation, those are a little bit of physical activity, but it's just in that right zone to help the body to like either acclimate to the day, if you're doing it in the morning, or kind of wind down, if you're doing it in the evening. So those are great, okay, cool, yeah, yeah. And then there's there's great guidance out there for exercises as well, if like for strengthening and endurance type exercises for your dog, yeah, for your dogs. So Dr Lori McCauley, she's an excellent rehab vet. She taught me a lot of what I know going through the rehab course and she actually has a program for pet parents. It's called optimum pet vitality and it's a great, a great program for pet parents to learn some specific exercises to do for their pets every day.

Speaker 1: 53:41

Cool, yeah, I love that. Should she come on the podcast.

Speaker 2: 53:46

She should.

Speaker 1: 53:50

Took you a second there, okay, so there's. You also mentioned thermo regulation and the only thing that comes to mind are, like those plunges that the peeps are doing these days, yeah. The polar bear club the polar bear club and you know I can't remember the name of the guy, but he's very popular. But I can't see that being something healthy to do for your dog. So how does that work? How does thermo regulation work when you're talking about your pet?

Speaker 2: 54:20

So, yeah, we don't want to be throwing our dogs into like ice baths and things, because it can be really stressful for them, as it is for us. So, yeah, I don't advise doing that, but exposing them to cold. So you know, if some of your listeners live in areas where you have some cold weather that we could be out with our dogs in for maybe 10 minutes, that's a great way to help to turn some of our white adipose tissue into brown adipose tissue, exactly, yeah, so white adipose tissue is the stuff that we accumulate as we age. It's what we generally recognize as fat. It doesn't feel good, some of us feel like it doesn't look good. So, yeah, but we know that from a from a molecular standpoint, an accumulation of white adipose tissue is unhealthy for us because, number one, it's one of the number one risk factors for cardiovascular disease in humans. But in humans and animals, white adipose tissue actually secretes inflammatory cytokines, or these inflammatory molecules, into our bodies that set us up for higher resting levels of inflammation.

Speaker 2: 55:59

Unfortunately, and because we're developed, we're accumulating. What tends to happen with aging is we're losing muscle slowly and we're depositing more fat, more white fat. We are giving ourselves more inflammation because of that white adipose tissue. So the benefit of doing the cold plunges or just exposure to cold, or it doesn't have to be anything extreme, even it could just be you're sitting in a cold room and you wish you had a sweater, but you're forcing yourself to sit there without a sweater, right? So your body yeah, so your body is having to do a little bit more work to generate that heat for yourself. Okay, so white adipose tissue does not consume as much energy as brown adipose tissue to regulate your body temperature. So you're actually, if you lose white fat and you have built up a little bit more brown fat just sitting in a cold room, you're going to burn more calories. Does that make sense?

Speaker 1: 57:16

Okay, yeah, yes, that makes sense. So how does that reflect on our dogs then?

Speaker 2: 57:22

So, same way.

Speaker 1: 57:24

So exposing them to a little bit of cold. Keeps them lean.

Speaker 2: 57:27

Keeps them lean and it's also anti-inflammatory because you're, it's helping you to lose a little bit of the white fat, white adipose tissue and convert that white into brown adipose tissue. So you're decreasing your inflammation and you're also increasing your body's ability to burn calories just sitting there.

Speaker 1: 57:53

So what do we need to be mindful about? Like, if we're taking them out into the super cold, do we not put a sweater on them? Do we not put boots on their paws so their paws don't get like ice burns or like how do we be headway? Oh yeah, mindfully, because I don't want people to see the information. Yes, Just be like you're going to walk in the snow.

Speaker 2: 58:12

Everything in moderation, right. It's not going to do you or your pet any good to go walk barefoot in the snow if you've ever done that before and stay out there for like 30 minutes Like that's not healthy. So we just need you know. I would start with like sitting in a cold room or you know, just like sitting there in the cold, like with not very many clothes on. If your dog is one of these like not very furry dogs, you know, just sitting there and maybe they're trembling a little bit for like 10 minutes before you put their sweater on, okay, right.

Speaker 1: 58:49

Okay.

Speaker 2: 58:51

So moderation this is. We are not torturing anyone, Right, Right?

Speaker 1: 58:55

So we're just being uncomfortable. We're just being a little bit uncomfortable with what?

Speaker 2: 58:59

we're doing Right, exactly so. This is just a form of hormesis, which is a term for what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.

Speaker 1: 59:08

Right, I was going to say toughens you up.

Speaker 2: 59:10

Yeah, yes. So be a little bit cold, because it's good for lowering inflammation and building your brown fat stores. You can also, you know, conversely, be a little bit hot, and again, we are not going to try to induce heat stress or heat stroke in our animals or ourselves. Right, we are going to do this in moderation. So for us, we could go sit in a sauna. This is a great way to stimulate proteins in our body to reform. Which is one of the hallmarks of aging is that our protein synthesis in our body becomes deregulated, and so sitting in a sauna helps to reregulate that same thing for our pets, and so this has been shown to be helpful in human models of Parkinson's and Alzheimer's disease. So just sitting in for red sauna.

Speaker 1: 1:00:09

Is that why they're so popular Like what's doing to read?

Speaker 2: 1:00:13

infrared, infrared. Infrared is a little bit more anti inflammatory in its mechanism, but if you're just um, this is more talking about like hot saunas that reach over 106 degrees Fahrenheit for humans. I don't recommend putting dogs in saunas, though.

Speaker 1: 1:00:34

Yeah, I was going to say yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:00:36

No, but for dogs again, like sitting out on a hot day, right, sitting out and letting your dog pant for five minutes, maybe 10 minutes, watching that tongue. If the tongue is starting to look really red, if it's starting to spread out and look like a shovel, your dog's getting too hot and it's no longer healthy. But sitting there and letting your dog and yourself be a little bit warm Basically, if it's, if you're feeling okay with it, your dog is still in a healthy zone as well. When you're getting too hot or you see those signs in your dog, like the tongue is spreading and it's very bright red, those are signs that your dog is starting to get stressed by the heat and that's no good. But it's not.

Speaker 1: 1:01:19

I don't want to stress the dogs out.

Speaker 2: 1:01:20

Yeah, no, but you know. So a little bit of heat, a little bit of cold on a daily basis is great to help us with our, you know, with slowing down some of the hallmarks of aging. Okay, and then the last, the last of the major lifestyle factors would be exposure to sex hormones. And so this in human medicine, as we all get beyond reproductive age, our you know, our androgens and our estrogen levels start to decline, and we know from several studies that this has negative impacts on several markers of health, including cognitive ability and dementia, and also various different chronic diseases as well. So in our pets we actually have even more control over this, some, in some cases, than humans do because of spay and neuter practices, and so in our pets we're actually removing those sex hormones at a much younger age, you know, compared to humans. So humans, we have our, we have our hormones throughout our lives.

Speaker 1: 1:02:45

Right Whereas these pets.

Speaker 2: 1:02:47

They're getting spayed and neutered and they're having removal of those hormones at a really young age and several studies, including one from dog aging project, did identify that the longer pets are exposed to sex hormones did correlate with greater longevity and lifespan, so Also correlates with less risk of multiple different forms of chronic diseases. There are a couple forms of cancer that can be predisposed to with longer exposure to sex hormones. So we do have to be mindful of different forms of cancer and it's a great discussion to be had with your vet, but I think it should be individual based. Spay and neuter practices should be individual, the like, individualized, based on each pet, would be a better way to go than just a broad protocol for everybody.

Speaker 1: 1:03:50

As I mentioned, we I did have Dr Karen Tobias on a few episodes ago when we talked about all the latest science regarding spay and neutering our pets, because this makes me nervous, because I know it's good for the longevity of our pets, it's fantastic for the health and wellness of our pets, but we have such an overpopulation problem in this country where pets are just at this moment in time it's separate issue and I bring it up all the time but they're just being used in the ice for space right now in shelters all across the country because there's just like. So I don't want people to blanketly think that they don't need to spay and neuter their pet and then go about their business being irresponsible pet owners and whatnot, so like so what we're really saying is like talk to your veterinarian about the health benefits and the timing of spaying and neutering your pet, right.

Speaker 2: 1:04:43

Yeah, so your question has several parts to it, two part answer. So the first part is that's why recommendations should be individually based for each pet, because every pet has a different circumstance. It's a different breed that might have a different position to different diseases from another breed, and you can. So, looking at, you know, certain kinds of cancer, it's going to be beneficial to delay the spay neuter and then at a certain point, spay neuter and then that doesn't impact development disease. Okay, for others it does. So it's so precision there there's not like a black or white there's.

Speaker 2: 1:05:37

You know you have to look at individual diseases that your individual pet might be at greater risk for than a different dog or cat, right. And then the other thing is the you know spay neuter is not just complete removal. Right, we have alternative. Yeah, we have procedures available that many people don't know about. But right, just like in humans, we can spare the ovaries, just take out the uterus. Or vice versa take out the uterus but take out the ovaries, but spare the uterus, leave that intact. For females, or for our males, we can do a vasectomy so that these individuals still have exposure to the hormones but they don't have reproductive capabilities.

Speaker 1: 1:06:27

Great yeah, that was very clear, thank you. Good yeah, so you can still. You can still keep them healthy and keep them from having babies, having more puppies, right yeah?

Speaker 2: 1:06:42

Yeah, okay. Yeah, sometimes it's a little bit challenging to find vets or a vet surgeon, right? Sometimes you have to look a little bit hard in the area that you're in to find, to find veterinary professionals who are performing these, but they're out there and they exist.

Speaker 1: 1:06:59

So Because it's not common knowledge yet right, it's just not common, you know Right.

Speaker 2: 1:07:06

And I say again, everybody needs to be counseled on the risks of doing these alternative procedures. But once you are informed of all of the benefits and risks then people should make a decision based on that individual pet Right.

Speaker 1: 1:07:25

Right, okay, okay, it's being a new ring is a very complicated issue. So, yeah, okay. Yeah got it.

Speaker 2: 1:07:33

So those? So those are the. Those are really the big five Lifestyle factors that, okay, promote slowing down of aging. Okay, yeah, and so we can. That's the. So that's the foundation that we talked about for our younger patients, um, human and animal. You should be laying down those foundational factors Early in life to set them up for the best outcome later in life. And only once you've got that foundation laid should you then be considering, you know, longevity supplements, things to add, um, right to their diet, or you know Pharmaceuticals that could then further the anti aging or pro longevity effects. But you know it's, it's like everything else. You can't, you can't just take a pill for that and it's going to be just as good. You have to have these lifestyle factors as a foundation for anything else to be, you know, optimally effective.

Speaker 1: 1:08:44

What can we talk about with some of the supplements and some of the things we can add to our pets diet? Yeah, mm-hmm, that would help with longevity and help with health and wellness. I'm assuming something for you know, arthritis and what and what ages. Can we incorporate these things into our well?

Speaker 2: 1:09:03

so it roughly Midway through that your, your pets expected lifespan would be Around time that I would be thinking of incorporating this stuff. Lifestyle factors start at birth, but these supplements would be add-ons in in, like midlife think, and for humans too. You know, there's potentially some proactive or or preempt, preemptive effects of doing these a little bit younger. But you know, for most people and pets I would say, start, think about starting around, like midlife, that midlife point. Um, you know. So these supplements are supplements and pharmaceuticals which I'm just going to lump into calling them compounds. Um, can I get around?

Speaker 1: 1:10:00

to what one quick second. So midlife for dogs would be six ish.

Speaker 2: 1:10:07

Well, it depends on the pet right. If it's a chihuahua, it could be like nine or ten or like a Yorkie, you know. But if it's a great day, you might want to start thinking about these things at like age three or four.

Speaker 1: 1:10:18

So for Doug dug my, my saint Bernard's. Pyrenees yeah, yeah, should we? Should we be starting now to put?

Speaker 2: 1:10:28

Yeah, probably four, four or five, five okay. How old?

Speaker 1: 1:10:32

is six. Is he he's six? He's low kids age. Yeah, he's six.

Speaker 2: 1:10:36

Yeah, okay, so you could be starting to think about these things now. So, um, one of the biggest categories of supplements is, uh, the nad activators, and nad is basically a enzyme that's involved in the metabolism Of every single cell of your body, every second of every minute of of your life. So when you so, as we age, our levels of nad start to decline, and because it's getting consumed from different factors, and so these compounds that actually Can can help us build nad and, um, you know to, to supplement ourselves with more energy, they actually stimulate these class of proteins in ourselves to repair dna. So, as we're going through our lives, we're experiencing different environmental and also, you know, Inside our body this happens too. We're experiencing these stressors that are doing damage to our dna every, every minute of every day, and so if we don't have enough nad in our body to effectively stimulate these proteins to do all the repair, construction you can think of it as just construction starts breaking down, right, and so then you have all of these, all of these projects that don't have adequate Reconstruction.

Speaker 2: 1:12:19

So you've got a lot of, you know, debilitation happening, um, right, and decline within ourselves. And so we can build up our nad levels by good diet, good exercise. That all helps us, helps our body to form more nad, but also we can do it with supplements. So, um, one thing is nad precursors, which many of your listeners may already be doing some form of this for themselves. Um, these are things like nmn, not m&m's, but I'm doing the m&m one they are using m&m diet.

Speaker 2: 1:13:02

Well, dr Heather said we should be eating m&m's m&m's, yeah, uh and nr. These are both precursors that when we take them orally, and also nar, we can take them orally and then our cells can actually convert them to nad and then more nad in the body stimulates these proteins to repair our dna. Also. These are these are a class of protein that are one of those that I mentioned before that are anti aging, that actually inhibit the pro aging protein in ourselves. So nad is repairing our dna, but it's also slowing down the aging process for us. So, um, one product that you and I both love chances on it. Um, that contains an nad precursor is leap years. That was another podcast episode.

Speaker 1: 1:14:03

I'm just gonna push it. I had them on the podcast. I am like fully behind this product.

Speaker 2: 1:14:07

I've seen a lot of things. I'm trying to get all my clients on it, yeah. It's a fantastic product.

Speaker 1: 1:14:13

And is there something like that for us humans?

Speaker 2: 1:14:16

yet. Uh, yeah, so there's um any nad precursors, the ones that I just mentioned, nmn or nr. Those are available Um to humans as well. We just have to find a reputable company.

Speaker 1: 1:14:31

You know that's gonna say can you say brands or like? Is there? Like how do you find a reputable company?

Speaker 2: 1:14:38

um, well, um, I, I do a lot, of, a lot of research on it. You can actually check consumer lab. That's a really great resource for pet parents. They do um third party testing of both human and animal supplements. Okay, so that's a great resource Um to find vitamins and any kind of supplement. Um. All the for pet quality control, mm-hmm, pets and people. Yeah, consumer lab, that's a great resource Um, but find a reputable company. Get nmn or, you know, nr. Talk to your doctor about this, of course, too, to make sure that it's right for you. Um, but these are great compounds that can Um build nad and help your body to slow down aging, repair your dna Um, and you know, help you to be Um, have more energy and just feel better throughout the day. Yeah, um. So that's one broad category of longevity supplements and um. Then the um. Another broad category is the compounds that um that regulate synescence, and you may have heard about cellular synescence.

Speaker 2: 1:15:55

This is um when the term zombie cells come into right, right, right yeah and I feel like a lot of people are reading about zombie cells lately, um so.

Speaker 1: 1:16:06

There is no them from the leap years podcast and I still don't get what they are, but but there's on these also. But I like the name. It's appropriate for a halloween episode of the burp it is.

Speaker 2: 1:16:18

It is what I found interesting is that a major research paper talking about Zombie cells was actually published on halloween last year. Oh, that's funny.

Speaker 1: 1:16:30

Yeah, they did that Perfect, I'm sure they did.

Speaker 2: 1:16:35

Well, we'll sass in the research.

Speaker 2: 1:16:37

Yeah, I know, but these. So these are products that, um, they help cells to either, um induce autophagy, which is, um a form of, like cell death right, it's programmed cell death and, um, what happens in aging is that, um, because of a lot of different processes that are occurring all at once, we start to lose our, our body starts to lose its ability to Do much of programmed cell death, and so a lot of these older cells start Get they, they get taken out of the cell cycle, so they get put into this like resting phase. You can think of it. As for the cell, they're not doing much of anything for the function of the the body anymore, except they do play a part in wound healing. So there is some function for them, but there's an accumulation of them that, during aging, will start to cause these cells to actually turn into inflammatory cells. And when they turn inflammatory, they actually just start producing these inflammatory molecules. And these inflammatory molecules actually reach out to neighboring cells, and the reason they're called zombie is that they infect the neighboring cells and they turn the neighboring cells into Zombie cells that then start producing more inflammatory molecules.

Speaker 2: 1:18:15

So these, so the supplements that are Targeting these senescent cells, otherwise known as zombie cells. They're working in one of two ways. Some of them, um, such as um a. One of the combination of products in the leap years is working in the way of inducing Programmed cell death for the old cells in the body. So when a dog takes that product, they're they're getting an nad boost, but they're also getting um. At least two days out of the month they're actually getting this programmed cell death happening in their old zombie cell, which is Kind of you can think of it as just like cleaning out the attic or cleaning out the garage, right, and you're doing away with a lot of inflammation. So that's why these products are so great for slowing down Aging, but also helping to prevent aging related disease, which are mostly inflammatory driven Um.

Speaker 2: 1:19:25

Okay, so these supplements? So they either are going to induce Programmed cell death um, these are called senolytics or they're going to modify the inflammatory molecules that the zombie cells are spitting out. So those are the two mechanisms that different molecules in this class are going to be working through um, and so the ones that work on the inflammatory molecules are called Senomorphics, and many of your listeners have probably heard of rapamycin or metformin. These are, yeah, metformin is a really Sort of popular human medication. It's a, it's a prescription um, and it's also used in type 2 diabetes.

Speaker 2: 1:20:19

Um, and then the rapamycin is a drug that is being used in human medicine, but also in in veterinary medicine. So, um, there have been some oncologists especially who have started using rapamycin Um in some for cancer. Yeah, so one of the the aspects of clinical use for rapamycin is as an adjunctive to chemotherapeutic protocols for osteosarcoma in dogs, and so there's there's still doing research on this to determine if rapamycin is effective um in as an adjunctive for osteosarcoma. But we do know that rapamycin does work in lifespan extension in pets. So, aside from the osteosarcoma aspect, where it may be helpful, um, we do know that rapamycin has been shown to slow down aging, but it is a prescription Um, so you would have to talk to your vet about it, and um I only know of veterinary oncologists who are currently prescribing it, so I'm not sure general practitioners are prescribing it.

Speaker 1: 1:21:38

Got it? Yeah, um, speaking of oncologists, um, I was. I also remember something that I picked up from your talk, uh, was how reserve atrol, um, which I think is what is in red wine. Back to our conversation about wine um, they are Using that. It can be beneficial for dogs with hemangiosarcoma, which is a form of cancer, and it is also the. Am I, am I correct in this? And that is also what chance had the, the Subcutaneous form of? He just had a lung removed, um, no sign of it anywhere in elton, his body, for my listeners, um, but we had a tumor removed um A few weeks ago and it did prove to be hemangiosarcoma and it, which is like a blood vessel cancer, right, and it can be extremely dangerous if it's in your liver, it shows up in their liver or their spleen or their chest, um, it's Extremely dangerous but luckily for chance, it was just in his skin, um, and apparently that is not as terrifying. So we're happy with the results so far. But how does reserve atrol? How does that Help something like hemangiosarcoma?

Speaker 2: 1:22:53

and going a little bit off base, just purely for personal reasons, because I want to know if that's something that should be giving chance to help with Resveratrol is it's a polyphenol that is found in grapes and red wine, um in dogs though we never source it from that because those would be toxic. So in yep, no grapes, nor wine. So in dogs it's going to be sourced from um, japanese knot weed root and um. So there are various resveratrol Um products on the market over the counter for for pets that you could get, and resveratrol is one of those compounds that helps to build nad, so it's going to help our cells in all the same ways that those nad precursors. It's not quite as effective as the nad precursors but it's actually been shown that resveratrol can provide a synergistic effect when given with nad precursors.

Speaker 2: 1:23:56

Now, the study that you're mentioning, charlotte, about Resveratrol and canine hemangiosarcoma, that was an in vitro study so it was done on cell culture, so it hasn't been done in live dogs with hemangiosarcoma. And many, many of these studies that are done in vitro in cell culture when you know you can see really great results in culture but then you could see completely different or you know no effect in the results when you do it in a live animal. So to my knowledge, live animal In in vivo studies have not been done yet Um looking at hemangiosarcoma and resveratrol, but that's not to say that you couldn't give it to chance, because resveratrol would be really helpful, just as a longevity supplement For for him.

Speaker 1: 1:24:48

Okay, so it's a like a Chinese herb.

Speaker 2: 1:24:51

Yeah, you can get it as a. You can get it as a Chinese herb Um, you can actually get it as a. You can get it as a western type Um supplement too, like online. Okay, you can't, okay, you just well. Well, yeah, you just have to make sure Reputable place, but yeah we'll talk further about it.

Speaker 1: 1:25:09

I want to make I want to make this, you know, more comprehensible for the listener, because we are talk getting a little technical here and that can be overwhelming, at least for me. Um and so the anti-aging protocols, what we what? Health and wellness, longevity, diet, first and foremost, activity, exposure to heat and cold, circadian rhythm, good sleep, good quality sleep and being mindful about spaying and neutering your pet, and talking to your veterinarian about, you know, what the best practices are for the dog they have in front of them, for the breed and and and whatever else is going on with your dog. So, and then we've talked briefly about supplements, but I want to make it a little bit easier, like if you were to recommend or get people thinking about, like you know, the top five supplements that they need for the health and wellness, for anti-aging and longevity in their, in their dog. We don't necessarily have to have brands, but uh, uh, just in a way that we can really understand like okay, he needs that you know.

Speaker 2: 1:26:12

So I think a handful of supplements that I would suggest are going to be going to give you the most bang for your buck for longevity for your pets would be would be a good NAD precursor, whether NMN, nar, nar you know whether you're doing leap years already which has an NAD precursor in it. I also would recommend a product that's going to target those senescent cells, those zombie cells, so yours has a good senolytic product in it that's going to induce program cell death. There's also standalone products that can target senescent cells, like quercetin, for example. A lot of people have used quercetin for themselves, maybe for their pets, for allergies, which it is quite effective for, but it also is a senolytic, so it's going to help induce program cell death of those senescent or zombie cells as well.

Speaker 1: 1:27:16

Yeah, we both use quercetin. I use it and Chance uses it.

Speaker 2: 1:27:19

yeah, For allergies. Yeah, and same thing with curcumin, which is turmeric, and curcumin is curcumin or turmeric is going to help with senescent cells as well, and it's also going to do something new that I haven't talked to you about already is it's going to induce quality control of mitochondria. Mitochondria, those are the power cells, so that's the little organelle inside your cells that's producing all of your energy all the time. Mitochondria are super important, and so curcumin is really great for mitochondrial health. Also, one aspect of mitochondrial health is really important for muscle preservation. So curcumin is a good one. Curcumin is a good one.

Speaker 1: 1:28:17

Dasequin advance is what Chance takes and it is something you have to get from your veterinarian right. Dasequin advance and that has the cure of human in it Okay so you can talk to your veterinarian about maybe adding dasequin to their supplements or some sort of joint supplement. And then you were going to mention, I think another one was maltone, but not every joint supplement has curcumin, turmeric, it's just the dasequin advance.

Speaker 2: 1:28:45

Otherwise you can find standalone curcumin or turmeric supplements to supplement with.

Speaker 2: 1:28:51

Okay, in addition to the NAD precursor, the senolytic, the curcumin I would also suggest, or quercetin, I would also suggest doing melatonin. Yeah, because as a person, melatonin is probably the most important hormone that our body makes, but we don't make it in enough supply as we get older to really help regulate that circadian rhythm. So supplementing melatonin at bedtime can really help us to induce deep sleep, which helps us to actually reverse a lot of the hallmarks of aging as we sleep and, as we talked about, it can help older pets with a whole host of issues that they might have during the day as well. So I really like doing melatonin and then just managing that healthy gut, managing the microbiome. So a lot of my patients I like to either run a microbiome analysis which is available for pets, really pinpoint if the dog does need, or cat does need, a specific probiotic to help to rebalance the microbiome, or we could do just a very nice helpful prebiotic such as psyllium husk oh, yeah, okay, yeah, so psyllium husk is great, yes, he does.

Speaker 2: 1:30:27

Yeah, so that's really great. You know it's giving that microbiome the gut, the healthy gut flora, you know a substrate to feed on and really help our beneficial microbes to flourish, because that's been shown to produce helpful molecules and fatty acids that can actually protect our health and even contribute to helping us have a better mood. Yeah, and our pets too. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:30:59

What's the best way to get people on board with this? I know cost is an issue, but, like you know, we briefly talked about how expensive senior dogs can be, because they can be so expensive and that's part of why a lot of them end up at the shelters, because they have all these issues. You know that people can't afford to pay for, but and how these little things, these little steps that we can do, these little shifts that we can make earlier in life, can really help.

Speaker 2: 1:31:24

You know it all boils down to an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, right, so the most. Yes, that's going to be the title.

Speaker 1: 1:31:34

That's going to be the title of this podcast episode.

Speaker 2: 1:31:36

Yeah, that's where everything sort of ties in with this is that by the time you see the problem, that is just the tip of the iceberg and that's just what's on the surface. And once you scratch the surface you have all of these hallmarks of aging that you're now dealing with and erosion of hallmarks of health. So if you're waiting until you see the signs you can, it's never too late to start implementing these things. It's never too late to change the diet and make things healthier. You know you will always see a change. You will see a positive change in your pet or in yourself.

Speaker 2: 1:32:21

But many times we're waiting until after we've already developed the chronic disease and you know we're anything that we do to that individual. At that point, yeah, you're going to see benefit, but you're probably still going to have to manage that chronic disease. It's probably you know, with different diseases it's probably going to be a little bit too late to completely cure the disease, whereas if you started off life this way, with like healthy lifestyle habits, and then start implementing the longevity supplements in there when you get, you know, midlife or older, you have a much better likelihood of avoiding the chronic disease altogether and living healthy and feeling healthy and feeling younger like well into your older years Right and feeling good and that's important.

Speaker 1: 1:33:15

Yeah, feeling good, yeah.

Speaker 2: 1:33:17

So that's why it's so important and also why it's so hard to convince people that it is important, because until they see a problem, they think everything is fine. But you know, I think you know, going through like infectious disease we develop infectious disease as an adult to older, um person or pet that inflammation can get really out of control and this is what usually causes the negative health outcomes that we see. And this is not just some random, you know. We don't know why the pet had such a hard time bouncing back from it this time or why this person had to be hospitalized when someone else got through it without hardly any symptoms. Well, it's because these people that have more reaction, more inflammatory reaction in these, these pets, that have worsening health outcomes. It's because they've got these signs internally of aging that we're not able to see outwardly yet in many cases. So if we can target this stuff before we start to see the outward, you know, appearance of it, we are benefiting that individual so much more than waiting until we see the actual signs.

Speaker 1: 1:34:39

Well, thank you, heather. I think we really covered it and I would love to have you back on. As always, you're welcome. Thanks, charlotte. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of the Baroo Podcast. As always, I have put links in the show notes for some of the great things that we talked about today and if you enjoyed the episode, please don't forget to rate and follow the Baroo Podcast. Wherever you listen to podcasts, don't forget to follow us on Instagram at Baroo Podcast. If you have a story of canine companionship that you'd like to share with me, a question or even a comment, I would love to hear from you. You can email me, charlotte, at thebaroocom. Alright, you guys, let's chat soon.