Many serious diseases, like diabetes, cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s and stroke, have one thing in common – their appearance increases with age.  The medical community is now studying a new way to fight off the risk of these diseases, not by curing them, but by delaying the aging process.

The drug rapamycin has already shown promise in improving heart health and delaying some diseases associated with aging when tested on mice.  The next step in clinical studies is testing the drug on dogs.  Dogs have been valuable “guinea pigs” in developing protocol treatments for cancer for many years.  And since dogs age faster than humans (sadly!) and show similar symptoms from age, such as loose skin and stiff joints, they may be the key to learning more about how to stall the aging process.

If successful, it may be an important step in finding new ways to extend healthy human longevity.  But if all it does is help extend the healthy lives of our furry friends, that would be a tremendous achievement on its own!

Here’s the full story in the New York Times:  Dogs Test Drug Aimed at Humans’ Biggest Killer:  Age