Oct. 8, 2019, 4:07 AM CDT / Updated Oct.
8, 2019, 6:37 AM CDT By Linda Carroll
Dog
owners live longer and fare better after a heart attack or stroke compared with
those who have no canine companions, two studies published Tuesday suggest.
Researchers
found that dog ownership was
associated with a 24-percent reduced risk of death from any cause among the
general public, and a 33 percent lower risk of death among heart attack
survivors who live alone, according to the reports, published in the
journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality
and Outcomes.
The new
studies are “interesting and provocative,” said Dr. Haider Warraich, director
of the heart failure program at the Boston VA Healthcare System, an instructor
at the Harvard Medical School and author of “State of the Heart: Exploring the
History, Science and Future of Heart Disease.”
“I
don’t think that this is what many people think about when adopting a dog,”
said Warraich, who was not involved with the new research. “They think they’re
doing it for the animal, not for their own health. But these studies suggest
that adopting a dog may be as much of a service to your own health as the
dog’s.”
Still,
Warraich said, “it’s not enough to have me recommend patients adopt a dog to
lower their risk of death.” For that to happen, there would need to be a lot
more research, he noted.
One of
the new studies merged data from the Swedish National Patient Register, which
included information on all Swedes from the ages of 40 to 85 who had had a
heart attack or stroke between January 2001 and December 2012, with data from the
Swedish Kennel Club and the Swedish Board of Agriculture dog registers.
Out of
those databases, the researchers gathered information on 181,696 patients who
had had a heart attack, 5.7 percent of whom owned a dog, and 154,617 who had
had a stroke, 4.8 percent of whom had a dog.
After
accounting for factors such as age, other health issues, marital status, the
presence of children in the home and income, the researchers found that heart attack survivors
who lived alone had a 33 percent lower risk of death in the year after their
heart attack if they had a dog, compared with non-dog owners. Among those who
did not live alone, the reduction in risk was smaller, at 15 percent.
And
that may be a clue to explaining how dogs might help their owners live longer.
“We
know that loneliness and
sedentary lifestyle is a major risk factor for premature death,” said study
co-author Tove Fall, a professor of molecular epidemiology at Uppsala
University in Sweden. “Dogs are an excellent motivation for their owners to get
outdoors and walk them.”
Four-legged
friends can also be a source of social support. “Dog-owners are also reported
to have more social interaction with other humans,” Fall said.
The
second study, which included information on 3,837,005 people, looked at data
from 10 earlier studies. Researchers found that, among the general population,
dog owners had a 24 percent lower risk of death from any cause over an average
follow-up period of 10 years, compared with non-dog owners. Among
dog owners with cardiovascular disease, the risk was 65 percent lower.
The
results weren’t a surprise, said the study’s lead author, Dr. Caroline Kramer,
an endocrinologist and clinician scientist at the University of Toronto’s Mount
Sinai Hospital. A lot of smaller studies, including some that randomized people
to either adopt a dog or not, have shown that having a canine companion can
lower blood pressure, improve cholesterol and reduce the risk of depression,
Kramer said.
What
sets dogs apart from other
pets, in terms of health benefits for humans, is their need to go for walks,
Kramer said.
“As a
dog owner myself I can see the benefits,” she added. “My step counting really
went up after I got a dog.”
While
the studies don’t prove that dog ownership leads to longer lives — they can
only show associations, not causation — there have been studies showing that
the companionship of a dog can lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol,
said Neda Gould, an assistant professor and director of the Mindfulness Program
at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine.
“When
the stress response is turned on too frequently, it leads to a lot of wear and
tear on the body in general,” Gould said.
For
those who are worried that a dog might be too much responsibility, experts suggest
starting with a low-maintenance pet — like goldfish, perhaps. Even those kinds
of pets can provide a benefit, albeit a smaller one. In fact, an earlier study
showed that just caring for crickets could make people healthier.
Part of
what the researchers are seeing in the new studies might be tied to the care
owners give to their dogs, said Stewart Shankman, a professor and chief
psychologist at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.
“There
are mental health benefits that come from altruism, for taking care of somebody
besides yourself,” Shankman said.
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