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 Researchers examined more than 1,700 adults in the Czech Republic
and found that dog owners tended to be younger, female and more
likely to smoke than people with different pets or with no companion
animals. Yet the dog owners were also more active, had better levels
of blood fat and blood sugar, and were less likely to be obese,
giving them an overall better cardiovascular health profile than the
rest.
"If you're thinking about getting a pet, getting a dog will likely
help you with your cardiovascular health goals. This should be a
point that will help you make that decision," said Dr. Jose Medina-Inojosa
of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, the study's senior
author.
Dog owners are known to engage in more physical activity and are
more likely to have regular exercise habits than those without dogs,
the study authors note in Mayo Clinic Proceedings. These benefits
were recognized in a 2013 statement from the American Heart
Association (AHA) that linked owning a pet, especially a dog, with
lower risk of heart disease.
For the current study, Medina-Inojosa and his team analyzed data on
men and women in the city of Brno who were participating in a
larger, long-term study. None of them had heart disease when they
were recruited in 2013-2014, at ages 25 to 64.
Of the nearly 42% of the participants with a pet, more than half
owned a dog.
After accounting for age, sex, and educational level, the team found
that dog ownership was associated with a higher total cardiovascular
health score when compared either to those with other types of pets
or those without pets.
Except for smoking, the researchers note, the dog owners were more
likely to engage in heart-healthy behaviors, including exercising
and eating a healthy diet, and were more likely to have ideal blood
sugar levels. They also tended to have higher levels of healthy HDL
cholesterol and lower prevalence of diabetes.
The owners of other pets, such as cats or horses, also had higher
cardiovascular health scores compared to those with no pets, but
this difference disappeared after adjusting for age, sex and
educational levels.
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The study was not designed to determine whether or how having a dog
might directly affect markers of heart disease risk, or whether
healthier people are more likely to have dogs.
One limitation, the authors acknowledge, is that they looked at
participants' heart health at one point in time and did not have
data on how long they had owned their pets.
Even so, Medina-Inojosa said in a phone interview, it's possible
that "owning a pet is going to give you an overall sense of
wellbeing. You start making better decisions about your food, maybe
smoking less, maybe walking a little more, getting up from bed, and
that makes your diet fall into place and then your lab values tend
to just fall behind."
The fact that participants resided in Central Eastern Europe, where
smoking rates are among the highest in the world, could explain the
large number of smokers in the study, he noted.
The daily exercise of providing for the dog and taking it out for
walks is what promotes better health and not just owning one, Angela
Curl of the Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, said in a phone
interview.
Curl, who wasn't involved in the study, believes more research is
required to see if owning a pet leads to improved cardiovascular
health.
"I think we can put more faith in the result if they are studying
the change over time. It's hard to know whether or not people were
different before they own pets versus after they own pets, whether
or not obtaining an animal made a difference for them," she said.
(This story has been refiled to correct dropped letter in paragraph
two.)
SOURCE: https://bit.ly/2PeZKAh Mayo Clinic Proceedings, online
August 23, 2019.
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