Preserving the hormonal activity of the testes and ovaries could help prevent the fragility typical of advanced age: this is the unexpected link that emerges from a study published in Scientific Reportswho examined the health of some of the oldest Rottweiler breed dogs in the world and discovered that the secret to their longevity lies… in the testicles.
Longevity and testicles. The research is part of a larger study, called Exceptional Aging in Rottweilers Study (Study on the exceptional aging of rottweilers), which aims to understand what biological, genetic and environmental factors cause some Rottweilers to live 30% longer than the average for their species – reaching an age equivalent in humans to 100 years.
The analyzes showed that male dogs who lost testicular function early had a much higher risk of death when they became frail in later life. On the contrary, in dogs that had kept the function of the gonads active for longer (i.e. the production of sexual hormones), the fragility linked to aging did not increase the probability of dying.
More resistant to fragility. What has been discovered could be useful not only in the field of veterinary medicine − to avoid, for example, performing unnecessary castrations − but also for geroscience (the science that studies aging), since an early loss of gonad function could make the elderly less resistant to frailty.
According to David Waters, coordinator of the research, by avoiding the deterioration of the hypothalamic-pituitary-gonadal (HPG) axis − a system that connects the brain to the sexual organs and regulates the production of the main sexual hormones − we could maintain an internal hormonal environment capable of attenuating the negative effects of fragility.
