New Formula Reveals Your Dog’s Real Age In Human Years

A new study has debunked the myth that multiplying a dog’s age by seven will provide its equivalent in human years. Instead, the study provided a more accurate formula to determine the age of canine pets in “human years.”

The findings of the new study, which was published in the journal bioRxiv, focus on how the natural process of methylation affects the body. According to the authors of the study, methyl groups are consistently added to the DNA as both dogs and humans mature. This is a natural process that prevents the body from aging too quickly.

Due to the process involved in methylation, it has been considered by scientists as the most accurate way to measure aging among mammals.

For the study, the researchers focused on the methylomes in the blood of 104 Labrador retrievers and compared them with those from a sample population of 320 humans aged 1 to 103 years old.

“Using targeted sequencing, we characterize the methylomes of 104 Labrador retrievers spanning a 16 year age range, achieving >150X coverage within mammalian syntenic blocks,” the researchers wrote in the study.

By analyzing these samples, the researchers were able to come up with a formula that supposedly provides a dog’s age in human years. The formula they came up with is human age = 16ln(dog age) + 31.

To use this formula, a natural logarithm calculator is needed, which can be accessed through this link. After typing in your dog’s age in the ln field, click enter to get the resulting value. Then, multiply this value by 16 and add 31. According to the researcher, the answer obtained through this formula is the equivalent of a dog’s age in human years.

“Conserved changes center on specific developmental gene networks which are sufficient to capture the effects of anti-aging interventions in multiple mammals,” the researchers explained. “These results establish methylation not only as a diagnostic age readout but as a cross-species translator of physiological aging milestones.”

Using the formula certainly reveals surprising results for pet owners especially since the answers suggest that dogs are older than they seem. Also, even though the researchers claimed that the formula acts as a translator for aging across different species, it doesn’t take into consideration that dogs age differently depending on their breed.