Clones of Dolly the Sheep Have Aged Like Any Other Sheep, Study Says

[MADem]

Now, based on results of this new study, researchers have confirmed what most scientists believed years ago: Cloning does not lead to premature aging.

Dr. Sinclair and his colleagues had not intended to study the health of these 13 sheep. They were originally created to study artificial reproduction, and the four from Dolly’s cell line were part of an effort to efficiently produce viable cloned sheep embryos. When Keith Campbell, who was in charge of Dolly’s relatives, died in 2012, the university asked Dr. Sinclair if anything could be learned from these old sheep. So they began to study how they are aging.

The cloned sheep were between the ages of 7 and 9, which is equivalent to about 60 in human years. The sheep led normal lives. They were put out to pasture in summer and kept in a barn for the winter. They never bred, but were fertile and perfectly normal, reproductively.

But to detect subtle signs of aging, the scientists conducted a battery of tests to check for symptoms of heart disease, type 2 diabetes and osteoarthritis. These included tests of blood pressure as well as glucose tolerance and insulin resistance combined with checks for clinical signs of osteoarthritis like stiff joints and radiological signs like bone spurs in X-rays or soft tissue damage in MRIs....

Much more at link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/science/dolly-the-sheep-clones.html?ribbon-ad-idx=2&rref=world/europe&_r=0