一种计算狗狗年龄的新方法

一种计算狗狗年龄的新方法

The old way to think about your dog's "human age" — the age in actual years times seven — is wrong. And researchers now have a new formula they think will calculate your dog's age more accurately.

旧的思维方式认为你的狗的“人类年龄”——实际年龄乘以7——是错误的。研究人员现在有了一个新的公式，他们认为可以更准确地计算出狗的年龄。

Simply put, compared with humans, dogs age very quickly at first, but then their aging slows down, a lot.

简单地说，与人类相比，狗一开始衰老得非常快，但之后它们的衰老速度会慢很多。

Trey Ideker of the University of California, San Diego was part of a team of researchers that looked at aging on the molecular level.

加州大学圣地亚哥分校的塔里艾德克是一组研究人员的一员，他们在分子水平上研究衰老。

Humans and dogs have DNA that basically doesn't change over the course of life, Ideker says.

艾德克说，人类和狗的DNA在一生中基本不会改变。

However, "we have these additional chemical marks, called epigenetic marks. The particular epigenetic mark that has turned out to be pretty important for the study of age is called methylation," he says.

然而，“我们有这些额外的化学标记，称为表观遗传标记。特别的表观遗传标记被证明对年龄的研究非常重要，它被称为甲基化，”他说。

"It's basically a wrinkle on your genome. So you have DNA that does not change, but then you have these additional marks that do change as you age. And they change in a very predictable way, so that you can use the pattern of marks to read out your age."

“这基本上是你基因组上的一个皱纹。所以你的DNA不会改变，但是你的这些额外的标记会随着你的年龄而改变。它们会以一种非常可预测的方式变化，所以你可以用标记的模式来读出你的年龄。”

The comparison of humans and dogs was made easier because they both often live in similar environments and get similar access to health care.

人类和狗的比较比较容易，因为它们都生活在相似的环境中，获得相似的卫生疗法。

For the study, they drew the blood of 104 Labrador retrievers ages 4 weeks to 16 years.

在这项研究中，他们抽取了104只拉布拉多猎犬的血液，年龄从4周到16岁不等。

"All I have to do is take dogs in a certain age group, like in a 1-year-old age group, and look at what are the most similar molecular profiles in the humans," Ideker says. "And what ages those humans are.

艾德克说:“我所要做的就是找一些特定年龄段的狗，比如1岁的狗，然后观察它们在人类身上最相似的分子结构。”还有那些人的年龄。

And it turns out that if you do that for like a 1-year-old dog, you find that the matching humans at the molecular profile level are surprisingly old. They're about 30 years old."

结果是，如果你对一只一岁大的狗这样做，你会发现在分子水平上匹配的人类惊人的很老。他们大约30岁。”

Using a dog age calculator based on the research, a 2-year-old dog is about 42 in human years. But a dog twice as old, 4 years, is roughly equivalent to a 53-year-old human. Double it again and an 8-year-old dog is only 64 in human age.

使用基于研究的狗龄计算法，一只2岁的狗大约是人类的42岁。但是一只4岁的狗，相当于一个53岁的人。如果再翻一番，一只8岁的狗的年龄只有人类的64岁。

The researchers broke down their comparison by developmental period:

研究人员将他们的比较按发育时期进行了细分:

"Juvenile refers to the period after infancy and before puberty, 2-6 mos. in dogs, 1-12 yrs. in humans;

幼年期是指婴儿期之后和青春期之前的时期，狗为2-6个月时，人类是1-12岁;

"Adolescent refers to the period from puberty to completion of growth, 6 mos. to 2 yrs. in dogs, approximately 12-25 yrs. in humans;

“青春期是指从青春期到发育完成的时期，狗为6个月至2岁，人类约为12-25岁；

"Mature refers to the period from 2-7 yrs. in dogs and 25-50 yrs. in humans;

“成熟是指狗的2-7岁，人的25-50岁；

"Senior refers to the subsequent period until life expectancy, 12 yrs. in dogs, 70 yrs. in humans."

“老年是指持续到预期寿命的后续时期，狗为12岁，人类为70岁。”

For a more personal example, Sadie, NPR's Peter Breslow's family dog, is 7 in human years. So the Breslow family might have once thought of her as being 49, but now it looks like she's about 62.

举一个更个人化的例子，NPR的彼得·布雷斯洛的家庭犬赛迪在人类的年龄中只有7岁。所以布雷斯洛一家可能曾经认为她49岁，但现在看起来她大约62岁。

But there's another way to think about it when we humans get to be about that age.

"If I'm a 60-year-old," Ideker says, "wow, I'm a 7-year-old dog!"

但当我们人类达到那个年龄时，还有另一种方式来思考它。“如果我是一个60岁的人，” 艾德克说，“哇，我是一只7岁的狗！”