One of America's favorite dog breeds may be in possession of the secret to a longer life, a study has found.
But golden retrievers, which are the third most popular breed in the United States following French bulldogs and Labrador retrievers, have a 65 percent chance of dying from cancer, and it's unclear why.
A new study published in the journal GeroScience conducted by researchers from the University of California, Davis, aimed to find whether there were any genetic factors that could increase their survival rate. They found that the dogs actually possess a gene associated with a long life.
"We assume that the majority of golden retrievers have a genetic predisposition to cancer, but if some of them are living to be 14, 15 or 16, we thought there could be another genetic factor that is helping to mitigate the bad genes, and the gene that popped out for us is HER4," co-corresponding author and Maxine Adler Endowed Chair in oncology at the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, Robert Rebhun, said in a release about the findings.
This gene is also found in humans, and is part of the same family as HER2—which is associated with the rapid growth of cancer cells. Certain variations of this gene are also known to increase life expectancy by around two years.
In the study, researchers compared the DNA of over 300 golden retrievers that lived to the age of 14, and ones that died before the age of 12. The dogs that lived longer were found to have certain variants of HER4—the same ones that increase life expectancy.
On average, dogs live to around 10 to 13 years old. There were also differences between female dogs and male dogs. Researchers found that the gene variant was more impactful for longevity in female dogs, than male dogs.
"Almost two years is a significant difference in a dog's life," co-corresponding author Danika Bannasch, Maxine Adler Endowed Chair in genetics with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, said in the release. "Wouldn't we all want our beloved pets to live another two years? Two years in goldens is about a 15-20% increase in lifespan, the equivalent of 12-14 years in humans."
The finding doesn't just mean important things for golden retrievers and their cancer survival rate. As humans also suffer from the same kinds of cancers as dogs, this could mean important things for this area of research, too.
"If we find that this variant in HER4 is important either in the formation or progression of cancer in golden retrievers, or if it can actually modify a cancer risk in this cancer predisposed population, that may be something that can be used in future cancer studies in humans," Rebhun said.
Scientists are still not clear on why golden retrievers have a high chance of developing cancer.
The researchers know that there are going to be "many genes involved," Bannasch said, but the fact that the gene associated with longest ivy, was also the gene involved in cancer development, "was really interesting."
Uncommon Knowledge
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Robyn White is a Newsweek Nature Reporter based in London, UK. Her focus is reporting on wildlife, science and the ... Read more
