Dog years to human years
Let’s calculate your Dog’s human age
A 2019 study of the epigenetic clock in dogs reveals, calculating your dog’s age is much more complicated than just multiplying by seven (still so many online websites use the year-old formula. It is time to change, let’s use the updated method to convert dog years to human years). Here is your dog human years calculator.
Calculate your dog’s age with this new, improved formula
One dog year is not equivalent to seven human year
One dog year is not equivalent to seven human years, despite widespread use of the ratio for calculating the age of canine companions. Presumably, the ratio is based on the average lifespan of dogs being 10 years and humans being 70 years, it’s not quite so simple. The formula is not based on any real science and it was debunked by veterinarians years ago.
But geneticists digging into the mysteries of aging have developed a new calculation to understand how our canine companions’ ages correspond to our own.
How do I calculate my dog’s age in human years?
If you want to more accurately calculate your dog’s age in human years, the University of California San Diego School of Medicine has come up with a new formula.
Researchers looked at patterns in human and Labrador Retriever DNA called methyl groups, which change over time. They determined that by multiplying a dog’s natural logarithm with 16 and adding 31, you can determine the dog’s age in human years.
Accurate formula looks like this: (human_age = 16ln(dog_age) + 31).
As you can see, this calculation is rather complicated, therefore it might be beneficial to use an automated calculator that has been programmed with this formula, such as the one listed above.
How did researchers found the accurate way to measure dog human age?
A scientist named Ideker and his team scanned DNA methylation patterns in the genomes of 104 dogs, ranging from 4 weeks to 16 years of age. Their analysis revealed that dogs and humans do have similar age-related methylation of certain genomic regions with high mutation rates; those similarities were most apparent when the scientists looked at young dogs and young humans or old dogs and old humans.
They found that certain groups of genes involved in development are similarly methylated during aging in both species. That suggests at least some aspects of aging are a continuation of development rather than a distinct process and that at least some of these changes are evolutionarily conserved in mammals, Ideker and colleagues report in a preprint posted online at bioRxiv you can read the complete research process there.
