from Hacker News

Anti-aging drug for dogs moves closer to gaining FDA approval

by artkulak on 12/11/23, 2:05 PM with 120 comments

• by AlexErrant on 12/11/23, 2:53 PM

  Discussion from 12 days ago, 187 comments https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38447491

• by jurassicfoxy on 12/11/23, 2:35 PM

  In addition, if anyone has an older dog, they should also immediately look into Librela: https://www.zoetisus.com/products/dogs/librela/

  This is a miracle drug that pretty much instantly changed both my (older) dogs' lives. Every vet tech I've spoken to (it's a monthly injection) agrees it is amazing.

• by drakonka on 12/11/23, 2:49 PM

  If anyone here has any anti-aging resources for cats, I'd love to see them. I have two 9-year-old Maine Coons whom I'm supplementing with glucosamine for joint and urinary health, and wonder if there's more I could be doing.

  Edit: Getting some great tips on core diet and health down below! Luckily we're already doing most of those, and I guess I'm largely wondering about advancements in supplementation or preventative medicine (of course everything would have to be considered with a veterinarian). Here are other basic things we already do:

  * My most important thing is not giving any dry food. Especially since one of my cats is prone to urinary problems and gets sick within just a couple of weeks if given even a partially-dry diet. But even if he wasn't prone to it, with what I've learned over the years I would not feed any cat dry food.

  * We eat partly wet partly homemade raw (but the latter needs to come with careful research and caveats since cats have very delicate nutritional needs).

  * Keep water bowls away from food and switch bowls/fountain once in a while for novelty.

  * Indoor-only and we go for walks on a harness for enrichment when the weather is nice.

• by ornornor on 12/11/23, 4:04 PM

  Several vets have all told my parents to get mutts rather than purebreds because they have so much less problems. The genetics are just healthier and stronger because they’re a mix, instead of inbreeding for generations. Ditto for cats.

• by celinehh94 on 12/11/23, 5:44 PM

  I'm the Founder/CEO - appreciate the excitement! :) Lot's of work to do still, but a very important step for dogs and for lifespan extension pharmaceuticals.

• by deadbabe on 12/11/23, 2:34 PM

  Why would any creature have hormones to accelerate aging as opposed to just letting the body wear out naturally with use?

• by ramesh31 on 12/11/23, 2:50 PM

  So the goal is to make big dogs live longer... by reducing the hormone that makes them big?

  Couldn't we just adopt healthier, proportional, longer lived dogs? Or do people just really want to see how miserable a 15 year old Great Dane would be?

• by ben30 on 12/11/23, 7:04 PM

  I’d like to point out the amusing coincidence of Fox News reporting on a story related to dogs.

• by wiz21c on 12/11/23, 3:17 PM

  After transhumanism, here comes transanimalism.

  I understand one may really like its dog/cat/... but, why not just accept time passes ?

  (I've lost a goldfish and I was not happy, proper burial helped a lot)

• by ksoped on 12/11/23, 2:34 PM

  Really wish this wasn't fox news ...

• by Eumenes on 12/11/23, 4:28 PM

  I recently visited nyc and was hanging out in central park. I saw so many huge dogs, huskies/german shepards/retriever/etc, which made me sick to my stomach. These poor animals need space. They are not biologically designed to be an accessory for the urban rich. Being held hostage in 300 sq foot apartments while their vapid owners are working in some office or on zoom calls all day is borderline torture. These drugs will just prolong said torture.

• by fallingknife on 12/11/23, 2:41 PM

  Do we really need to be using up government resources doing drug approvals for dogs? It takes so long to get human drugs approved. Let's use the resources there and let the market sort out what works for animals.