Aside from the most commonly handed animal models like rodents and pigs, dogs, also known as man’s best buddy, had been recently identified as an ideal variable for understanding the human health framework.
Health experts across the globe have been successfully utilizing animal models when investigating various types of human health complications, as stated by The British Psychological Society. These specimen have undeniably helped several scientists analyze the emergence of different kinds of ailments in the human body. It also helped major researchers establish clearer explanations and evidences in the scientific trial and error process.
Why dogs are more compatible variables for human health research?
Luis Pedro Coelho from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany, with collaboration of the EMBL members and the cooperation of Nestlé Purina Research laboratories in St. Louis, MO emphasized that dogs are considered a more suitable animal model for studying some serious human health conditions. This is because the microbiome of a dog’s gut indicated greater similarity to some of the human internal parts.
Dog and Human Microbiome resemblance
Theresa Fossum, director of the Texas A&M Institute for Preclinical Studies added that compared to any other animal models, dog as animal models can better help scientists examine and predict symptoms of various types of human illnesses, such as bone cancer, obesity and diabetes, or even develop possible treatments in the near future, due to their microbiome resemblance.
According to the study published in the journal Microbiome, and co-founded by the Nestlé Purina PetCare Company, there were about 64 dogs with 2 of its breed: Beagle and Labrador retriever involved in the experiment; the other dogs were said to be healthy and the rest were overweight.
Within 4 weeks, all the dogs were fed with the same kind of available food, although the first group received food with a higher amount of protein and lower amount of carbohydrates and the other received the opposite. The findings stated that high protein and low carbs intake had affected both the human and dog microbiomes.
In addition, a total of 129 samples of dog stools were gathered throughout the whole research timeline. It gave the scientists an opportunity to outline the gene content of the dog’s microbiomes which were 1,247,405 genes overall. Researchers believed that 63% of the dog’s microbiomes resembled the gut microbiomes of humans.
In contrary, these results imply that the shown similarities do not necessarily mean that the microbiomes of the dogs can be exactly identical to the human microbiomes. Coelho said that human microbiomes are still more complex and that there are many aspects that must be looked at with regards to this case.
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