A recent study published in the journal PLOS ONE looked at more than 25,000 dogs of 238 different breeds in the United States, analyzing the relationship between the animals’ age, their size, and the prevalence of disease. The results may provide insight into why small dogs typically live longer than large ones.
Although scientific evidence shows that dog size does not affect the number of medical complications, but the risks associated with them, further research is still needed to clarify these observations.
In a recently published analysis conducted by scientists at the University of Washington (USA), older dogs were more prone to infectious diseases, cancer, as well as gastrointestinal, neurological, endocrine, bone and ear, nose and throat problems. the throat. Small dogs, on the other hand, are more likely to be diagnosed with eye, heart, respiratory or pancreatic diseases. Surprisingly, renal or urinary tract complications did not differ by animal size.
Different dog sizes were associated with different lifetime risk patterns for different types of diseases, such as cancer, eye, heart, orthopedic, and ear, nose, and throat diseases. It is important to note that the results remained consistent after statistically accounting for the gender of the dogs, the environment they lived in, and whether they were pure or mixed breeds.
The researchers stress that the study does not establish a cause-and-effect relationship between dog size, age and disease, but emphasize that the results provide insights into the categories of disease that may contribute to reduced life expectancy in older dogs, suggesting several areas for further research. :
With information from Galileo Magazine
