00:00They're turning to some familiar tools in the wellness space.
00:03I'm blown away by this.
00:05I'm clearly not taking good enough care of my dog.
00:05You're not giving peptides and giving them to the pups?
00:08Yeah, peptides, anti-aging drugs, red light therapy.
00:11This is not for the owner, Carol.
00:15It's for the pet.
00:15It is indeed.
00:16Anna Edney is a Bloomberg News national health care reporter.
00:19She knows about this stuff.
00:20She wrote about this for the Bloomberg Big Take, and she joins us here on this Sunday.
00:25Anna, we've been having some fun reading this, talking about it, leading up to having a chat
00:29with you.
00:29Tell us what is going on.
00:32I mean, I haven't even done peptides.
00:34I haven't given them to my dogs, but there's a lot of people out there who are.
00:38Yeah, that's absolutely right.
00:40Both of your dogs are adorable.
00:42I love those pictures.
00:45But my colleague, Annika, and I, we talked to some pet owners who are looking at, you
00:52know, they're thinking a lot of times about longevity and wellness for themselves, and
00:57then they are extending that to their pets.
00:59If they're going to live longer, they want their pets to be there with them.
01:02So they're trying peptides.
01:05Red light therapy was a big one that we heard about, as well as a longevity drug that people
01:13are trying.
01:13This is not a drug that's approved for this, called rapamycin.
01:17Yeah.
01:17It actually is approved for organ transplants to try to help people not reject the organ,
01:23but in smaller doses, they're trying it out for long days.
01:26That sounds a little extreme.
01:27Is it safe for our dogs?
01:29Yeah.
01:29Yeah.
01:30I think that's a really, really good question.
01:32You know, a lot of the vets that I talked to were cautious about that and said, you know,
01:39there was one woman who at University of California, Davis, who told me, you know, often when we
01:45see a sick pet come in, we are asking what they're taking in addition to, you know, the
01:50pet food.
01:51And if it's supplements, we ask them, you know, to stop the supplements for a little while,
01:56because often that's actually the cause of some of the illness, particularly if they're
02:00getting them from somewhere that maybe isn't just kind of your regular pet store aisle.
02:06And so, you know, I think that that's a, that's something that pet owners need to weigh when
02:11they're, when they're thinking about this.
02:13There is a clinical trial in dogs going on with the dog aging project at the university
02:19at Texas A&M University.
02:21I talked to a vet there who's the chief veterinary officer of that, and they're looking at this.
02:28They said they haven't seen any side effects that might be linked to the drug, but it's early.
02:34They're still enrolling dogs, so they don't know everything yet.
02:38Anna, any of us who own pups know it's not inexpensive.
02:41We've all had those vet bills.
02:43Just talk to Tom Keen about them.
02:45It's often a common narrative.
02:47Camel Fee might be watching now.
02:49In the morning.
02:50I'm curious about what this all costs and how it plays into the bigger picture of what we
02:54are spending on our pets.
02:56Yeah, we are spending a lot of money on our pets, you know, looking at about $165 billion
03:04just in the U.S. coming up.
03:06And that's for your normal, I guess, your usual pet care things you think of, like veterinary
03:11visits and pet food and toys, things like that.
03:15And then, you know, there's the pet supplement market, which is, you know, a smaller portion
03:23of that, about $2.9 billion expected this year.
03:27But, you know, I did talk to a woman who follows this market, and she mentioned that she's seeing
03:36a lot of those supplements catch on to this trend, though.
03:39They're not just saying they're for senior dogs anymore.
03:41They're saying they're for longevity, looking at that, even if they're kind of some of the
03:47same supplements we've seen for senior dogs before.
03:50So, you know, there's a lot.
03:53People are spending hundreds of dollars a month on some of these drugs and on the red light
03:58therapy.
03:59We talked to a pet owner and his sort of, I guess, dog, Manny, who helps with the dogs
04:06and helps keep all of their pills and their food and their supplements going throughout
04:12the day and does a lot of their, does their red light therapy with a red light laser.
04:17So people are definitely, you know, who are interested in this, putting up a lot of money.
04:21You have a dog, Manny, right?
04:22Yeah, definitely.
04:24That's called Joe.
04:26Yeah, I walk them every morning.
04:27That's the, I do what I can.
04:29But what's the end game here?
04:31By the way, my dog would never sit for red light therapy.
04:34Are our dogs going to be living until they're 30 years old or something someday?
04:39You know, I think that that's what the people who are doing this really hope for is they're
04:44going to extend the life of dogs.
04:46You know, I talked to the chief executive officer of Elanco.
04:51It's a pet animal health company.
04:54And he said, we've already extended the life of a lot of our pets throughout the years.
04:59You know, they used to live outside mostly.
05:00Now they're inside.
05:01That helps.
05:02They're doing their vaccines.
05:03They have, you know, better food, better nutrition.
05:07And each of that adds, you know, 5, 10 years every time.
05:12And so as we're looking at companies like Loyal, who's trying to bring a longevity drug
05:17to market, or even Elanco that's trying to work on some things to help with these diseases
05:22that can kill our pets, you know, we can add another 5 or 10 years.
05:28I don't know if we're looking at forever for our pets.
05:31Wow.
05:32I don't know.
05:33I guess it beats taxidermy in the end.
05:36You had to go with it.
05:37People were doing this.
05:38Crazy, crazy.
05:39Anna, thank you.
05:40You're great.
05:40I love this story.
05:41But, you know, all I can think is the red light and the little puppy, like, on the bed.
05:44And it's got the little white things on.
05:46You don't even sit still to give them a bath.
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