Page 2 - Diet And Dementia Casein Antioxidants DHEA

Aging/Cognitive Dysfunction Nutrition

Changes are seen as “normal aging” by owners so they don’t discuss with their vet. It makes sense that
aging can be described as a multi-faceted condition. Affected organ systems include chronic kidney
disease, gastrointestinal problems, and arthritis. There are also changes in the appearance of the skin
and hair coat. Behavior changes also may occur, including changes in activity levels, social interactions
with the family or other pets, daily habits like using litter box, grooming and sleeping, and others. Many
of these behaviors are a result of changes in cognitive function.

In 2005, The American Animal Hospital Association published guidelines for care of older pets. The
guidelines from AAHA recommend starting in middle age (4 – 5 years) with yearly exams and minimum
data base laboratory work, and going to twice per year exams and lab work as pets become seniors.
Aging is unavoidable, but proper nutrition can be used fight the effects of aging. Age-appropriate
nutrition can provide benefits to older pets. There is basic research being performed on aging-nutrition
and applying that to bring the most up-to-date knowledge of nutrition and aging for cats and dogs.

Using an approach called “Predictive biology” in nutritional research provides a way to understand how
nutrition affects aging and aging affects nutritional needs. This is not limited to just what you can see in
the pet, but what is happening to the pet’s genes at the cellular level that you can’t see. Predictive
biology helps us understand the biology of aging, so we can provide nutrition to help fights its effects.
Genes have the ability to be switched on and off in making protein. What controls these genes to be up-
regulated or down-regulated is very complex, but we know it is extremely important to how the body
works. The most important aspect of this work is the discovery that cognitive performance can be
improved by dietary manipulation. Furthermore, this finding is of considerable practical importance.

Scientists used gene expression technology to see what differences existed between young adult and
the older dogs. They took a group of young adult dogs, aged 2 – 6 years, and a group of older adult
dogs, aged 7 – 14 years. All of the dogs were fed the same food for 30 days to prevent bias from the
food they were eating. Out of the ~40,000 genes examined, 900 were expressed differently between the
two age groups. Dogs aged 2-6 had very different gene expression from dogs aged 7-14. There are
many genes that are up-regulated in the older pet that are not in the younger adult and genes that are
down-regulated in older dogs but up-regulated in younger dogs.

Cat findings were similar for three groups of cats: young adult cats: 28 cats 2 to 6 years of age; middle-
aged cats: 29 cats 7 to 10 years of age; and mature adult cats: 32 cats 11 to 14 years of age. Just like in
the dog studies, all of the cats were fed the same food to prevent bias from the food they were eating.
Out of the ~40,000 genes examined, 102 were expressed differently between the three age groups.
Gene expression heat maps showed the expression of the 102 genes that were expressed differently
between the age groups. Cats aged 2 to 6 had very different gene expression from cats aged 11 to 14.
Although not as profound, cats aged 7 to 10 are different from those aged 2 to 6 as well.