Life Lines by Dr. Dolittle

Tag Archive for ‘dogs’

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Best Friend or Stress Test? What Pets Do to Our Bodies

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), 68% of households in the United States have a pet. Pets are thought to help people by decreasing stress and improving cardiovascular health. The NIH and Mar’s Corporation WALTHAM Centre for Pet Nutrition have teamed up to support research examining such questions, but the results have been mixed. According to Dr. Layla Esposito, who leads the NIH Human-Animal Interaction Research Program, people […]

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Stress is contagious, even for dogs

Stress can make people pretty stinky. Humans have two main kinds of sweat glands. The eccrine glands produce sweat that we associate with exercise or warm weather – thin, watery and mostly odorless. We can thank apocrine glands for responding to stress by producing a thick fluid containing fats and proteins that skin bacteria love to digest. The result: stinky compounds somewhat reminiscent of vinegar or leeks. While humans may […]

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Dogs may facilitate spread of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever

Alec Oliva, a graduate student at Midwestern University – Glendale campus, presented research examining the spread of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (RMSF) at the 2019 Arizona Physiological Society conference this past weekend. With a mortality rate as much as 80% without treatment, the spread of this disease is quite concerning. Ticks are vectors for the Rickettsia rickettsii bacteria responsible for causing RMSF. Dogs are notoriously at risk for acquiring tick infestations […]

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Dogs can sniff out epileptic seizures

A new study published by researchers at the University of Rennes in France shows that epileptic seizures produce a distinct body odor profile that can be detected by dogs, opening up the possibility of training the animals to predict (and warn their owners about) these types of seizures. Sources: Video: YouTube Catala A, Grandgeorge M, Schaff J-L, Cousillas H, Hausberger M, Cattet J. Dogs demonstrate the existence of an epileptic […]

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Longevity of dogs

Dogs are weird when it comes to predicting longevity based on body size. For many species, small body size means higher metabolic rate and shorter lifespan. For dogs, smaller body size = longer lifespan. Dr. Ana Jimenez (Colgate University) presented research at the Comparative Physiology meeting this weekend showing that larger dogs do indeed develop more DNA damage with aging than smaller dogs.

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