08/08/2026
🧬 CAN WHAT YOUR DOG EATS CHANGE HOW FAST THEIR BODY AGES?
A fascinating new peer-reviewed pilot study suggests it might.
Researchers followed pugs for 6 months, comparing dogs that stayed on extruded dry kibble with dogs switched to a cooked, minimally processed, human-grade diet formulated by a board-certified veterinary nutritionist.
Instead of just measuring weight or bloodwork, researchers looked at changes in the dogs’ DNA associated with biological aging — essentially, how old their bodies appeared compared with their actual age.
🥩 The surprising finding? Dogs switched to fresh food showed a nearly 1-year shift toward a younger biological age in just 6 months, while dogs that stayed on kibble did not show a significant change.
🥩 Fresh food: +2.75 years → +1.80 years
🥣 Kibble: +2.77 years → +2.46 years
Even more interesting, the dogs’ bodyweights remained stable, suggesting the shift wasn’t simply due to weight loss. Researchers also found significant changes involving KISS1R, a gene associated with metabolism and obesity, in the fresh-fed dogs but not the kibble-fed dogs.
Published in Veterinary Record Open, a peer-reviewed journal of the British Veterinary Association published by Wiley, the study adds to growing research on the potential benefits of balanced, minimally processed foods.
🥦 Want to add more fresh food to your pet’s bowl but aren’t sure where to start? That’s why Dr. Karen Becker and Rodney Habib wrote The Forever Dog LIFE.
It includes 30+ complete and balanced fresh-food recipes that can be served raw, poached, slow-cooked, or baked, with versions for dogs and cats, different activity levels and life stages, plus hundreds of variations online.
Whether you feed fully fresh or simply want to add more fresh food, The Forever Dog LIFE helps you do fresh food right. 🐶🐱🥩🥦
