Heart’s Best Friend? Dog Owners Have Longer Life Expectancy

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Heart’s Best Friend? Dog Owners Have Longer Life Expectancy After Coronary Events

A dog is not only man’s best friend. Companionship from a dog may also have a positive effect on an owner’s cardiovascular health, even lengthening their life span, according to research.
This is the essence of a prospective study and a meta-analysis looking at the cardiovascular risks and survival of dog owners.
“These two studies provide good, quality data indicating dog ownership is associated with reduced cardiac and all-cause mortality,” commented Dr Glenn Levine, chair of the Working Group responsible for writing the official statement from the American Heart Association (AHA) on pet ownership. “While these non-randomised studies cannot ‘prove’ that adopting or owning a dog directly leads to reduced mortality, these robust findings are certainly at least suggestive of this,” he continued.
Based on previous studies, which had shown that social isolation and an inactive lifestyle have a negative impact, researchers wanted to establish to what extent dog owners would get health benefits from the companionship of their four-legged friends.
The analysis was based on data from more than 3.8 million patients from 10 prospective studies. Nine of them compared all-cause mortality of dog owners and non-owners, and four studies compared cardiovascular outcomes. The results showed that dog ownership was associated with: 
  • 24% reduction in overall all-cause mortality
  • 65% reduction in all-cause mortality in individuals who had prior coronary events
  • 31% reduction in cardiovascular mortality
A connection between owning a dog and improved cardiovascular health due to more exercise, spending more time in the fresh air and less stress may be “biologically plausible”, he believes. However, above all, improved mental health from owning a dog may have the most salient impact on cardiovascular outcomes. “My interpretation of the collective evidence to date is that the association between dog ownership and improved survival is real, and is likely at least partially causal.”
Translated and adapted from Medscape’s German Edition .
Pet Ownership and Cardiovascular Risk. A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association.

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