The Dog Aging Project Is Trying to Help Dogs Live Longer — and It Might Save Humans Too

Scientists are studying how to help dogs live longer, healthier lives. The research insights are also reshaping human aging science. Here is what they have found so far.

The Dog Aging Project — a large-scale longitudinal study that has enrolled tens of thousands of pet dogs across the United States with the specific goal of understanding the biological mechanisms of aging in dogs — has been producing findings that matter for both canine welfare and human health science. CBS News's coverage of the project in early April 2026 coincides with the publication of several new findings from the project's expanding data set.

Dogs are unusual research subjects for aging science for a specific reason: they share the human environment almost entirely. They live in the same homes, eat similar food types, breathe the same air, experience the same seasonal patterns, and are exposed to the same environmental stressors that are suspected contributors to human aging. This shared environmental exposure makes them scientifically complementary to traditional animal aging research conducted in controlled laboratory conditions — they show how aging plays out in real-world conditions rather than in artificial ones.

The project's core research involves monitoring enrolled dogs through annual health surveys, veterinary examinations, physical samples, and increasingly, wearable sensor data. The database this creates — tens of thousands of dogs tracked longitudinally over years — allows researchers to identify which early-life factors predict healthy aging versus age-related disease; which environmental exposures are associated with accelerated biological aging; and whether specific interventions — exercise regimens, dietary modifications, specific supplements — extend healthy lifespan in practice.

One of the project's most watched specific investigations involves testing rapamycin — an immunosuppressant drug that has consistently extended lifespan in laboratory animal models — in middle-aged dogs at doses that don't produce the immune suppression that makes the drug problematic for long-term human use. Results from the completed phase of this trial are expected later in 2026, and they are being watched by human longevity researchers with unusual intensity.