Industry-funded study of the week: dog food

Thanks to Phyllis Entis of eFoodAlert.com for this one.

• The Study: Minimally processed, human-grade diet alters canine epigenetic ageing: Results from a pilot study. Aimee Chen, Wei Guo, Janina A. Krumbeck, Dan Su, Vincent Michels, Xiaojing Yang.  First published: 05 August 2026.  https://doi.org/10.1002/vro2.70047

• Results: Dogs fed with MPHGF diet [minimally processed, human-grade food] exhibited a significant reduction in delta age, decreasing from 2.75 to 1.80 years over 6 months (p = 0.02), indicating a trend of slowed epigenetic ageing. In contrast, dogs fed with EDK diet [extruded dry kibble] exhibited no significant change in epigenetic ageing (p = 0.86).

• Conclusion: This study demonstrates the potential for dietary interventions to influence epigenetic ageing in dogs and provides a practical, quantitative framework for investigating healthy ageing in companion animals.

• Funding: This study was funded by JustFoodForDogs, Inc. and involved food provided by the company.

• Conflict of interest: The authors declare they have no conflicts of interest. Dan Su and Vincent Michels are employees of JustFoodforDogs who funded the study.

Comment: I hardly know what to make of the Conflict of Interest statement here.  The authors declare no COI, but they are employed by the funder of the study, JustFoodForDogs, which has much to gain from demonstrating that its products improve dog longevity.  The authors must not consider this a COI.  I do.

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