Half of dogs in Dog Aging Project cohort got supplements

CURRENT FULL VERSION: Supplement use appears to be firmly mainstream among U.S. dogs enrolled in the Dog Aging Project. In a newly indexed American Journal of Veterinary Research paper, researchers analyzing 40,367 enrollment surveys found that 20,993 dogs, or 52%, were receiving supplements, with omega-3 fatty acids and joint supplements leading the list. The study’s title points to another notable pattern: use was especially common among dogs with orthopedic conditions, and it varied by life stage. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

The findings come from the Dog Aging Project, one of the largest canine health studies in the country. The project, led by researchers at institutions including the University of Washington and Texas A&M University, collects annual survey data from pet parents and, when possible, veterinary electronic medical records, alongside biologic samples from selected cohorts. As of August 2023, the project said it had enrolled more than 45,000 companion dogs, giving investigators an unusually large real-world dataset for studying aging, disease, environment, and care patterns. In AVMA’s Veterinary Vertex discussion of the paper, the authors described the study as a first broad-strokes look at the project’s supplement questionnaire: what products dogs are getting, what types of dogs receive them, and which owner factors appear to matter. (content.dogagingproject.org)

In the supplement analysis, researchers extracted owner-reported supplement use, demographic variables, and selected health conditions from surveys completed between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022. Among dogs receiving supplements, 57% were given omega-3 fatty acids and 56% were given joint supplements. The authors concluded that dog demographic characteristics were more strongly associated with supplement use than pet parent demographic characteristics, and they framed the results as a practical prompt for veterinary teams to ask more consistently about these products during routine care. In the related podcast interview, the investigators also emphasized why the topic matters now: the companion-animal supplement market has been growing for years, driven in part by owner interest in preventive care, longevity, and quality of life. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

The paper also builds on earlier Dog Aging Project work around joint supplements. A 2022 Frontiers in Veterinary Science study using the same broader research platform examined demographic factors associated with joint supplement use, underscoring that supplement practices can reflect age, size, diet, and disease status, not just pet parent preference. Taken together, the newer AJVR paper and prior DAP analyses suggest supplement use is not a niche behavior in this population, but part of how many pet parents respond to chronic, age-related concerns, especially musculoskeletal ones. (frontiersin.org)

Industry and veterinary discussion around the paper has focused on counseling, documentation, and evidence quality. The Veterinary Vertex podcast episode on the study highlighted a practical tension many clinicians already know well: supplements are everywhere in canine care, but many products reach the market without the kind of premarket review veterinarians associate with approved drugs. As the authors noted there, animal supplements are not regulated in the same way as drugs and are not required to demonstrate safety or efficacy before they come to market, even though marketing often uses medical language. FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine states that there is no “dietary supplement” regulatory classification for animal products, and FDA has separately explained that the human dietary supplement framework created by DSHEA does not apply to animal products. Meanwhile, the National Animal Supplement Council promotes its Quality Seal as an industry quality program, giving clinicians and pet parents a voluntary signal to look for, though it is not the same as FDA drug approval. (podcasts.apple.com)

Why it matters: For veterinary professionals, this is less a story about whether supplements exist and more a story about how often they’re already part of the treatment landscape. If roughly half of dogs in a large national cohort are getting supplements, medication reconciliation that skips over chews, oils, powders, and “joint support” products risks missing a meaningful part of the patient’s care plan. That has implications for adverse-event monitoring, client communication, expectations management, and evidence-based recommendations, especially in senior dogs and patients with orthopedic disease, where supplement use appears to cluster. The study’s authors explicitly say veterinary team professionals should consider spending more time discussing supplement use and efficacy with dog owners, especially for senior pets. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)

There’s also a broader One Health and surveillance angle. Because the Dog Aging Project links large-scale survey data with other health and biologic information over time, it may help researchers move beyond simple prevalence estimates and toward better understanding which supplements are associated with which populations, conditions, and outcomes. That won’t answer efficacy questions on its own, since these are observational and owner-reported data, but it can sharpen hypotheses and identify where clinical trials or stronger comparative studies are most needed. More broadly, AVMA’s separate Veterinary Vertex discussion of One Health integrated companion-animal surveillance argues that bringing together animal, human, and environmental data could support more timely risk mitigation and more realistic modeling of health outcomes across sectors. That inference fits with the Dog Aging Project’s open-science, longitudinal design and its emphasis on integrating survey, environmental, and biologic data. (content.dogagingproject.org)

What to watch: The next step is whether Dog Aging Project investigators can connect supplement exposure patterns to longitudinal outcomes, and whether the findings push more veterinary practices to standardize how they ask about, document, and evaluate supplement use during routine visits. Longer term, the bigger opportunity is whether companion-animal datasets can be integrated with broader One Health surveillance systems to support earlier, more useful signals about risk, disease patterns, and care trends. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)