Adopt a Cat for Your Health!
A new study out of the University of Minnesota shows that keeping a cat cuts your risk of heart attack or stroke by nearly 30 percent! Cat owners probably aren’t surprised by the results, although the researchers weren’t expecting the magnitude of the effect. Coming on the furry heels of the recent CATalyst Summit and its effort to raise the stature of cats makes this report seem quite serendipitous.
So will your doctor say, “Take home a cat, and call me in the morning?” We can only hope. It’s not only cool to keep cats, you now may get a doctor’s purr-scription!
The lead researcher, Dr. Adnan Qureshi, agreed that cats bring medical benefits to their owners, and unlike drugs or surgery, there are minimal risks--other than an overabundance of furry love, I suppose.
Qureshi, executive director of the Minnesota Stroke Institute at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, suspected there might be benefits, so posed his own questions and planned to present results last Thursday at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in New Orleans. His team reviewed data on 4,435 Americans, aged 30 to 75, who took part in the federal government's (1976-1980) second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study. Of the participants, 2,435 either owned a cat or had owned a cat in the past, while the remaining 2,000 had never done so.
Most surprising--d*gs in this study didn’t measure up. In previous studies, it was found that a single 12-minute visit with a dog improved the heart and lung function of people with heart failure, but the Minnesota findings put d*g owners in the same category as non-pet owners--no protective effect was observed. To be fair to d*g lovers out there, (and I am one!) Qureshi indicated that the numbers of d*g owners in the study wasn't big enough to count statistically.
Qureshi doesn’t even own a cat, although he says the study results may prompt him to rectify that situation. Speaking of serendipity…that’s my cat’s name. There’s something magical at work here, folks, wouldn’t you say? (cue eerie music…)
To read more about the health benefits of pet ownership, check out Petside's article How Pets' Love Helps You Live Longer
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Comments (1)
TarScoussor September 2, 2009 4:41 PM
Good.
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