One year is Equivalent to Seven Dog Years – Experts Show Disagreement

According to that famous myth, every year a dog spends on the planet is equal to seven years for a human. Therefore, if a dog lives to be 15 years old, it will be 105 in human years.

There are many ways to determine the age of dogs compared to humans. The calculated results vary according to the breeds and size of dogs. The most accepted calculation is that one year for you is seven years for your dear dogs.

The research team from the University of California San Diego’s School of Medicine has invented a more authentic formula to calculate a dog’s age. The new study disproved that one human year equals seven dog years. Instead, they believe it is much more than that.

According to the reports, the team said they invented a more accurate formula to estimate a dog’s age based on chemical modifications in the DNA.

The scientists understood the aging approach across breeds as dogs share the same atmosphere and receive the same health care as humans. Additionally, dogs follow similar developmental rotations that ultimately make them easy to age-related conditions.

But dogs’ aging approach is different and more complex. “Regarding how physiologically mature a one-year-old dog is, a nine-month-old dog can have puppies. You know that if you do the math, you don’t know just seven times. So what’s surprising is exactly how old that one-year-old dog is.

To conclude, the researchers studied 104 Labrador retrievers, from few-week-old puppies to 16-year-old dogs. At last, the comparison disclosed a new formula that was more useful and correct for matching the canine-human life stages. Hence, based on the latest function, an eight-week-old dog is around the age of a nine-month-old baby.

How was this determined?

Human and dog DNA doesn’t change during life. What transforms are the chemical marks on the DNA, which is called methylation. Trey Ideker said methylation is like a genome wrinkle that acts as an age indicator.