{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,21]],"date-time":"2026-07-21T09:04:24Z","timestamp":1784624664168,"version":"3.55.0"},"reference-count":50,"publisher":"Oxford University Press (OUP)","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,21]],"date-time":"2026-07-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1784592000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":20,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc-nd\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"IAMS Company; P&G Pet Care"},{"name":"Rottweiler Health Foundation"}],"content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":[],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,1]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title>\n                  <jats:p>Frailty refers to a state of heightened vulnerability to adverse health outcomes. Animal models of frailty provide an opportunity to probe lifetime events and exposures that drive frailty progression and to evaluate intervention strategies that could mitigate frailty development and its consequences in older adults. The relationship between parity\u2014production of live offspring\u2014and later life frailty in women is poorly understood. Here, we utilize companion dogs to test the hypothesis that production of live offspring comes at a physiological cost, leading to increased late-life frailty. We measured deficit accumulation using a 34-item clinical frailty index in a cohort of 95 geriatric female Rottweilers. The study outcome was late-life robustness, defined as the lowest quintile of frailty in the study population. We found no evidence of reproductive cost. Instead, compared to nulliparous females, parous females were 3\u00d7 more likely to retain late-life robustness [OR, 95% CI\u2009=\u20093.30,1.16-9.38; p\u2009=\u2009.025], a relationship not attenuated by adjusting for covariates, including owner-reported reason for nulliparity. Moreover, females with largest number of litters had highest late-life robustness. Finally, employing two measures of early-life health\/fitness\u2014earlier-in-life health deficits, lifetime morbidity profiles\u2014could not explain results based on selection. This inquiry introduces a new application of the dog model of frailty for the study of reproduction and deficit accumulation. The linkage we observed between parity and higher late-life robustness is congruent with results of several studies in women, suggesting parous females may have the capacity to dampen the development of later-in-life frailty, which should be further investigated at the genetic and epigenetic level.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1093\/gerona\/glag163","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,21]],"date-time":"2026-07-21T05:01:16Z","timestamp":1784610076000},"source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["The relationship between parity and late-life frailty: companion dogs as a preclinical model for evaluating factors that aggravate or mitigate the frailty cost of reproduction"],"prefix":"10.1093","volume":"81","author":[{"given":"David J","family":"Waters","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Exceptional Longevity Studies, Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation , West Lafayette, Indiana,","place":["United States"]},{"name":"Center on Aging and the Life Course and the Department of Veterinary Clinical Sciences, College of Veterinary Medicine, Purdue University , West Lafayette, Indiana,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Aimee H","family":"Maras","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Exceptional Longevity Studies, Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation , West Lafayette, Indiana,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Rong","family":"Fu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Sociology, Siena University , Loudonville, New York,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-2293-079X","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Andres E","family":"Carrillo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Department of Exercise Science, College of Health Sciences, Chatham University , Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Emily C","family":"Chiang","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Exceptional Longevity Studies, Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation , West Lafayette, Indiana,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Cheri L","family":"Suckow","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Center for Exceptional Longevity Studies, Gerald P. Murphy Cancer Foundation , West Lafayette, Indiana,","place":["United States"]}],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"286","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,7,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"2026072104361936900_glag163-B1","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"447","DOI":"10.1007\/s11357-017-9993-7","article-title":"A frailty index from common clinical and laboratory tests predicts increased risk of death across the life course","volume":"39","author":"Blodgett","year":"2017","journal-title":"Geroscience"},{"key":"2026072104361936900_glag163-B2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"43068","DOI":"10.1038\/srep43068","article-title":"A frailty index based on deficit accumulation quantifies mortality risk in humans and in mice","volume":"7","author":"Rockwood","year":"2017","journal-title":"Sci Rep"},{"key":"2026072104361936900_glag163-B3","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"62","DOI":"10.1093\/gerona\/gls119","article-title":"Searching for an operational definition of frailty: a Delphi method based consensus statement. The frailty operative definition-consensus conference project","volume":"68","author":"Rodr\u00edguez-Ma\u00f1as","year":"2013","journal-title":"J Gerontol Ser A Biol Sci Med Sci"},{"key":"2026072104361936900_glag163-B4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"610","DOI":"10.1159\/000501333","article-title":"Frailty assessment in animal models","volume":"65","author":"Heinze-Milne","year":"2019","journal-title":"Gerontology"},{"key":"2026072104361936900_glag163-B5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"621","DOI":"10.1093\/gerona\/glt136","article-title":"A clinical frailty index in aging mice: comparisons with frailty index data in humans","volume":"69","author":"Whitehead","year":"2014","journal-title":"J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci"},{"key":"2026072104361936900_glag163-B6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"333","DOI":"10.1093\/gerona\/glu315","article-title":"Impact of longevity interventions on a validated mouse clinical frailty 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