Hope for Pet Parents: Benefits of Research Learnings in Pets and Companion Animals
Pets are a source of companionship and pleasure for people all over the world, but they also offer a world of benefits to other pets and humans through research. Let's take a look at some of these benefits.
Everyone knows that dogs–and every companion animal, really–are man’s best friends. They play a major role in our well-being, and previous research has shown that pet owners fall sick less, get well faster, and are generally more content than non-pet owners. Also, pet owners with mental issues may even benefit from their companion animals!
So, it comes as no shock that some 76.8 million dogs and 58.3 million cats are kept as pets in the United States alone!
Yup. The benefits of pets to our well-being are enormous and people know it.
However, innovative research has shown that the benefits of these wonderful companion creatures go beyond the psychological into the downright scientific with their introduction into biomedical research.
This kind of research is often cutting-edge and even helps inform human medicine. People and pets alike benefit a lot from companion animal research, and today, more and more organizations and vet medicine institutions are toeing the line of this ground-breaking research path.
Companion Animal Research
Did you know that dogs and people share up to 84% of their DNA?
That's right. We’re genetically closer to pet animals than we’d thought.
And, that’s not all.
Dogs and humans share over 350 diseases in common, and many diseases in pets follow a similar presentation in humans. Examples include bone cancers and heart disorders in dogs, joint diseases in horses, and kidney disorders in cats.
This means that research with pet animals who are very much like us genetically and already have similar diseases will yield better results and information about the effectiveness of new treatments and whether they’re safe for pets and people.
Basically, companion animal research speaks of the experimental testing of new therapies, devices, and medications for specific health conditions on pets who already have these health conditions.
And, it holds a world of benefits for people and pets alike.
How Companion Animal Research Benefits Animals
Developing new treatments
Some very common pet diseases often go undetected till death and are untreatable, with current treatments usually ending in further complications and death of the animals.
As new treatments are discovered through companion animal research, that means better therapies for the already sick pet animals being used in the research and for other animals who come down with those diseases.
Over the years, pet animal research has helped to develop new treatments for heart disease in cats and bone cancer in dogs.
Some studies done to develop new treatments include hormonal therapies to treat prostate cancer in dogs and cell transplants for spinal cord injury.
Recently, a Japanese research team successfully discovered an easy way of inducing stem cell generation from blood cells taken from dogs.
Stem cells are special cells that can become almost any type of cell in the body, and so by transplanting stem cells and guiding them on which type of body cell to develop into, researchers can regenerate damaged body tissues.
This breakthrough is great news and means that in the future, vets may be able to treat and reverse degenerative and incurable diseases in dogs.
Learning more about environmental hazards to pets
Companion animal research helps us learn about the relationship between environmental hazards and diseases like cancers in pets.
Studies done in the past have shown that environmental pollutants can increase the risk of pets getting diseases like cancer. The more we learn about these associations, the better we can protect pets and other animals from these hazards and from the diseases they cause.
Developing cancer vaccine
Cancer is sadly the number 1 cause of death in pets like dogs.
And by studying tumor antigens-proteins found only on tumor cells and can be recognized and attacked by the immune system-researchers have identified new tumor antigen types that could delay or prevent cancer when injected into mice.
Further research is being done on dogs to see if these antigens can serve as a cancer vaccine by reducing the likelihood of cancer.
How Companion Animal Research Benefits Humans
Fast-tracking cancer research
We already know that humans and companion animals have similar genetic makeup and share a lot of health conditions.
In addition, because pets have a shorter lifespan than humans, diseases progress a lot faster in their bodies, and by studying naturally occurring diseases in these companion animals, we can fast-track the development of new treatment options for human diseases including cancers.
Protecting against environmental carcinogens.
Many environmental hazards are carcinogenic (cancer-causing substances), and continuous exposure to them can damage human DNA, causing cancer.
And, because pets are exposed to just about the same environmental conditions as we are and show signs of toxicity from environmental hazards faster than we do, studying them can help us learn a lot about environmental carcinogens, and how they cause cancer.
By learning about these carcinogens in the environment, we can protect ourselves by knowing what and what not to get exposed to.
Developing new treatment regimens
Some rare human diseases are challenging to study because there aren't enough people who suffer from them and so not enough research subjects.
One example is Osteosarcoma, a very malignant bone cancer with a 5-year survival rate of only 30 percent in children in whom cancer has spread to other parts of the body.
Unfortunately, chemotherapy regimens for this disease haven’t improved in over 30 years because of a lack of research because of the rare nature of the disease.
Now, osteosarcoma is very common in dogs, with over 10,000 cases diagnosed every year. Also, the biology of the disease and its signs and symptoms are similar in dogs and humans, so studying naturally occurring osteosarcoma in these pets can help us develop much-needed new treatments for the disease.
In many cases animal research is ahead of the curve with, for example, a cancer vaccine being tested with pets, and could be revolutionary.
Helping in anti-aging and regenerative medicine
Everybody wants to live longer - at least most people do.
Scientists get this and there's been an increase in the focus of human research on longevity/anti-aging medicine or regenerative medicine.
Pets, especially dogs, have helped a lot in anti-aging research including some potential anti-aging drug studies.
The rationale behind it is that research into prolonging the life of these pets will go a long way in helping us understand how genes, environment, and lifestyle impact aging in animals and humans.
Regenerative medicine has also benefited from pet research. And there's been a boom in promising studies towards stem cell therapy which could be revolutionary in managing degenerative diseases in people.
Identifying environmental hazards
Just as with carcinogens, we can learn quite a lot about environmental hazards and even predict and prevent possible harm to humans from some of these hazards through companion animal research.
For example, it was discovered that an abandoned study from the 1970s had shown that dogs could detect areas with high levels of lead paint, and experts say that if studies like this had been continued, we may have been able to avoid public health crises like the Flint water crisis.
Hence, studying the way companion animals respond to environmental hazards can be very valuable in learning more about these hazards and preventing accidents and disasters.
Screening for infections and cancers
Amazingly, research has also shown that pets may help screen for certain infections (like COVID) way faster than conventional screening methods.
A study found that dogs could detect COVID infection in the sweat of infected people!
Thankfully, the disease-detecting abilities of pets aren't limited to infections alone but even extend to cancers.
Studies have shown that dogs could identify people with lung cancer, bladder cancer, and ovarian and colorectal cancer through their urine and breath samples!
We should all be interested in companion animal research, the benefits to animals and people alike are endless.
Pet parents know pets suffer many of the same illnesses as people do: they get cataracts, UTIs, asthma, and of course, cancer. And learning centered on our precious ones allow us to discover new treatment options and to find out if these treatments are safe and effective for use on pets and people.
To learn more about cutting-edge research with companion animals, check out new vet clinical trials from our partners UC Davis Veterinary Medicine and Texas A&M Veterinary Medicine.
