Americans Are Spending Billions to Help Their Pets Live Longer

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1:29Bloomberg Audio Studios. Podcasts, radio, news. Sam Chow lives in a penthouse apartment in Manhattan with his Norwich Terriers. Four of them. There's the oldest in the group, Patriot. Patriot is 12 years old. Then there's Petunia. The original alpha in the family is Petunia. She's basically asking you to pet her. Paddington, the COVID baby. Paddington, you want me to carry you? Come. And Patsy, the youngest. Now we have Patsy challenging Petunia for the alpha role. So it's everyday comedy. You can see that already. Sam loves his dogs more than anything. For me, it's my fur children, you know, and they give me so much stability.

2:17And like many pet lovers, he says keeping his dogs healthy is a top priority. I'm known as their butler. So I would stack their food with, they have blueberries, alternate day they have salmon rolls, they have eggs, they have sweet tomato, turmeric. They have broccoli pretty much every single day. But Sam has taken pet care farther than most. They go on to direct light therapy several times a day, you know. And the reason why, again, is inflammation, boosting circulation. Red light therapy beds, collagen, peptide supplements. The ingredient BioPro Plus is a human peptide therapy based on an ingredient called wild deer antler.

3:02So I take a shot of that every morning. They have the same ingredient in their chew in a dog format. And for his two oldest dogs, a longevity drug called rapamycin. When I got Rappamacin for Patriot, prior to that, I can tell you he would be sleeping the whole day. Doesn't have much energy level. He's lethargic. And it works. He is like a puppy now. You notice his energy level. And that's something I noticed that it just changed the way his well-being. Pet owners like Sam are taking a page from the Human Wellness Industrial Complex and applying it to their petunias and Paddingtons. Bloomberg reporter Annika Anampudi says it's part of a growing trend that's helped drive a predicted$165 billion in U.S.

3:54pet spending this year. With the rise of these wellness centers and peptides and all these sort of biohackers that are maybe turning to more unconventional treatments to extend their lifespans. And it's really interesting how it's almost trickled down to pets. And that's raised questions about the treatment's efficacy and their value to consumers who just want the best for their furry friends. Petunia, what are you licking?

4:30I'm Sarah Holder, and this is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. Today on the show, can your dog live forever? We looked at the trend of pet owners trying everything from peptide injections to pills to extend the life and wellness of their pets.

4:52Sam Chow's apartment is the kind of place where you walk in and immediately go, wow. There's a fireplace, big windows, a staircase. But the real reason Sam moved there was because of his dogs. It's quiet, the streets are clean, and I just wanted to ensure that I have more room for the dogs. Sam's dog's influence is everywhere. Above the mantle, there are four miniatures of his dogs, handmade out of felt by an artist from England. And on the table near the door, there's a framed photo of Sam's first Norwich terrier, Thatcher, who lived to 16 years old, sitting with Sam's late husband. I lost my husband through stage 4 lung cancer.

5:37So for me, it was a little bit of a grounding for me to have the continuity of the same breed that we like. So we got Patriot. And Patriot was with us the whole entire time. And I noticed that maybe he's depressed. So we got Petunia. And then we have COVID. So we got a third one. And after the third one, we said, you know what, might as well just get a fourth one. Outside his life as a dog owner, Sam is a beauty strategist, which means he's deeply tapped into the latest wellness trends. So I'm sorry to say that we all take collagen, especially in the beauty world, everyone's taking collagen. So you and your dogs all take the same collagen?

6:15Yes, but one's for human version, mine's liquid version, and theirs is a powder version as well. And take it from my eyewitness testimony, Sam has amazing skin. He says he thinks of his own self-care and his pet's wellness as linked. The wear and tear of dogs goes through the same thing as the wear and tear for humans. You brush your teeth, you should be brushing the teeth of your dogs. You know, if you're running and sprinting or going to the gym and lifting weights, you need collagen. So as them walking and pulling you everywhere. So I think that mindset, I feel as dog parents, helps to improve a little bit more of an inward self-care.

6:55Sam is just one of a handful of pet owners that Bloomberg's Annika and Amputi spoke to about their approach to improving their animals' health and extending their lifespans. There was a source that I spoke to that, you know, hires an assistant to help him and his wife, you know, take care of his aging dogs. Like take the dogs to red light therapy, water therapy, behavioral therapy, all sorts of things to sort of like help them recover from various illnesses, but then also just like to prevent things down the line. We also have statistics on the pet supplement market, which is also a booming industry.

7:36The figure is$2.9 billion. It's just growing. I mean, we also looked at the number of dog and cat owners who have been giving their dogs and cat supplements. And the numbers have surged in the last six years or so. I believe in cats, it's like 70 % growth. And in dogs, it's 56%. Then there's rapamycin. myosin, which has become a go-to in the pet longevity space. It's been used by humans for decades to prevent kidney transplant rejection. Studies on mice who've been given small doses have shown a range of benefits, like improved heart health. It's conditionally approved for use on cats with heart conditions.

8:19And it's currently in clinical trials on canines. But one of the principal investigators told us no data will be available until 2028. One pet owner told Annika that time is a big factor in deciding what to give his pets. He's not a biohacker himself. He doesn't take, you know, rapamycin. He doesn't do any longevity treatments. But he was like, I've got 80 years to live my life. I've got 80 years to wait out and see if there's science maybe decades down the line that could extend my lifespan. But But my dogs don't have that time. They've got maybe like 10 or 15 years. And so I'm willing to try anything to just let them live like happier and longer lives.

9:02Humans have always been willing to spend on their pets. But Anika says the pandemic marked an inflection point. More people were getting pets and more people started getting into pet wellness. And I think part of it is these pet owners believing that, you know, veterinary care might be a bit more reactive than they had been hoping. And they're looking for, you know, more preventative measures, something that they can do at, you know, the middle of a dog's life as opposed to, you know, when the dog gets cancer or when the conditions start piling up. There's a whole industry that's cropped up to serve these kinds of proactive pet owners.

9:43There are smaller players like the startup Loyal Animal Health, which is studying three drugs targeted towards extending pets' lifespans. There are also industry behemoths like Elanco Animal Health, which used to be a subsidiary of the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly. The company has pioneered work on pet vaccines, flea prevention, and treatments for cat diabetes. And Ilanko has actually dedicated a staff of about 50 employees specifically for the purposes of researching pet longevity, extending lifespans, etc. When Anika's colleague Anna Edney visited Ilanko's Indianapolis headquarters, the CEO had brought his black lab named Lily to the office.

10:29That's like Eli Lily. The company wouldn't say how much they're spending on longevity research specifically. But last year, it did spend nearly$370 million total on research and development. It just shows how, you know, small startups like Loyal have been investing in this, but also some of the biggest companies in the veterinary space are also thinking about how do we extend lifespans for pets. I mean, Eli Lilly, to me, is very famous for GLP-1s in humans. I'm wondering, are there GLP-1s for dogs? Not yet, or not in a way that veterinarians would recommend. There are some people that we spoke to who were giving peptides off-label to their animals, but obviously that was more of a DIY, sort of like people choosing to see how these substances or chemicals might work in their animals.

11:25And they've seen, anecdotally, they've seen results, but I would say on the whole, veterinarians and the industry is still sort of waiting and seeing how, you know, GLP-1s or peptides work out. There's a lot the industry still doesn't know for sure about some of these longevity treatments for pets. How effective they are, how safe they are, and whether they're worth the cost. Coming up, how pet owners are making these calls.

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14:18When Sam Chow started giving rapamycin to his oldest dog, Patriot, he says he noticed a new pep in Patriot's step. But the drug is still being studied. And Bloomberg's Annika Anampudi says, as of now, there are limitations on how it can be produced and marketed for animals. Rapamycin is a pill that is used in humans. It's been used in humans for like a quarter of a century to help the organ transplant process. This is a pill that has then been co-opted by the human biohacking industry, and some people take it to extend their own lifespans. This has now trickled down to pets, and we have people giving their pets rapamycin.

15:02Animal medications are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine. And rapamycin isn't FDA-approved for pet longevity. The Department of Health and Human Services told us it isn't approved for human longevity either. Canine clinical trials for the drug are underway. But in the meantime, vets are allowed to prescribe it off-label for some animals' conditions. Sam gets rapamycin through a telehealth company called Dutch, which connects pet owners with vets who prescribe the treatment virtually. Anika spoke to another doctor who brands himself as the longevity vet.

15:41His name is Dr. Kevin Toman. Dr. Toman has around 3 ,000 clients in his practice, and he's somebody who prescribes rapamycin in an off-label capacity, basically, for senior or aging dogs and cats. Meeting virtually with Dr. Thoman to get a personalized lifespan improvement plan can run a pet owner$275. For on-demand meetings, he charges$475 a month. You spoke to veterinarians and you spoke to experts about some of the risk factors of using rapamycin to help dogs and cats extend their lifespan. What did they find? One of the vets that we spoke to said that she hasn't really seen any side effects from rapamycin, but she hasn't also yet seen conclusive proof that it does extend lifespans.

16:37They also cautioned the fact that, you know, you should talk to a veterinarian while you are, you know, dosing animals with any sort of medication. be mindful of dosing requirements because, you know, humans are much bigger than animals, and so maybe they would require a different kind of dosing. But, you know, specifically with rapamycin, it's still too early to tell whether there are going to be any significant effects. Obviously, you know, the clinical trial that I spoke about earlier hasn't been completed yet. One of the principal investigators of the double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial told us the study has two purposes, determining whether rapamycin increases the lifespan of dogs or improves the health of aging dogs.

17:24There's also another startup called Loyal Animal Health, which is testing three drugs specifically for the purpose of extending lifespan. So this is not rapamycin. This is like something that they had designed themselves. And those results haven't been out yet. I think on the whole, veterinarians are probably just waiting for maybe, you know, more definitive science to come out before they start recommending it more widely. It's so interesting because obviously people for a long time have thought of pets as children, like they have these really intense bonds with their pets. But does this mean that people are basically experimenting on their pets?

18:05Yeah, that's an interesting question. I think some of the pet owners I spoke to were like, you know, these like substances, like these medications, they get tested on animals anyway, you know, early in their in the drug development process, like they they're safe in mice. And so why wouldn't they be safe in my dog or my cat? I think the way that they think about it also is that I have like 80 years to to live a happy and fulfilled life, but my dog might only have, what, like 10 to 14 years. And so they just think like I would be willing to do anything. I'd be willing to try anything to even extend it by like a year or six months.

18:45And are those the timescales that we're talking about here? Like when we talk about expanding pet longevity, is it expanding their lifespan by six months, one year, or 10 years, 20 years? The people that I spoke to, they don't necessarily think about it in terms of like years per se. They think about it in terms of like good years. They don't want a dog that, you know, might be a bit older and like have, you know, maybe bone issues or heart issues and just be living to like, you know, 15, 16 years old. I am willing to take calculated risks for Pietro because I just want him to be better and to be, you know, to be healthier.

19:28Sam views participating in the burgeoning world of pet wellness as a calculated risk worth taking. He stresses he does it all under a vet's supervision. But there was another factor I wanted to ask him about. How much would you say you're paying for all of these treatments overall? All in all, rapamycin, supplements, and everything else that goes in there, I would say around, gosh, I'm having a tough time giving you the number. I think it would be quite close to around 8 ,000 a year. Why was that difficult to say? I think especially with the world that we are living in now, I just really want to be sensitive because there are so many families out there that are having a tough time with the economy.

20:15And for me, I just really don't want people to think that I am spoiling my dogs. I think one clarification to a lot of people that they are not my dogs, they are my children. So as you, as a human person, volunteering to spend money on their ballet classes or their football game or their play date or their vacation to Cancun or whatever, we all have choices. And my choice is to spend the money on their longevity. How does it feel thinking about your pets getting older and your dogs getting older? I try not to think about that. Recently, I received an email from a company that preserves your pets in a cryo chamber until there's future technology to unpreserve and make that post-summer case.

21:12I'm not there yet, you know, to be honest. Were you intrigued a little bit? I was intrigued because I'm always curious for technology and innovation. You know, I was intrigued. I'm sure there's a human version, and they are a human version as well. But to be honest, it's like, I just want to have better years and better moments with them. And I think it's something that we do with humans as well. And I think that's the philosophy I am taking with my pet, is I just want to have better years with them and also better quality years.

21:48This is The Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder. The show is hosted by me, David Gura, and Wan Ha. The show is made by Aaron Edwards, David Fox, Jeff Grocott, Patty Hirsch, Rachel Lewis-Kriskie, Emma Munger, Naomi Ng, Julia Press, Tracy Samuelson, Naomi Shaven, Alex Ugiura, Julia Weaver, Yong Yong, and Taka Yasuzawa. Our executive producer is Nicole Beamsterborn. To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access to all of Bloomberg.com, subscribe today at Bloomberg.com slash podcast offer. Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week.

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