Older people with pet dogs are 50% less likely to have a disability.
Whether they are peeing on your carpet, chewing on your shoelaces or wagging their tail to greet you at the door, we can all agree that dogs are giant, adorable dopes.
What is slightly more contentious is whether having a furry friend prevents against ill health.
From the literature, one could surmise that dog ownership is correlated strongly with getting caught in a tornado and whisked off to the merry old Land of Oz …
Or having your couch chewed to pieces …
Or being pursued by dot-crazed dog murderers.
But there is some scientific research showing that dog ownership improves survival and reduces doctor visits in people.
(And there’s also research that finds no relationship between pet ownership and good health.)
A recent study has weighed into this debate by suggesting that dog ownership is associated with a 50% reduction in disability risk in people aged between 65 and 84.
Researchers from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute of Gerontology recently published a paper in PLOS ONE looking at pet ownership and disability in 11,000 older Japanese adults.
The study found that older adults who owned a dog were about half as likely to have a disability than those who had never been dog owners. The risk of disability was even lower in people who regularly walked their dog.
This was still the case when the researchers accounted for other sociodemographic and health factors that could influence disability risk, such as marital status, history of chronic diseases and time spent outdoors.
Cat ownership was not linked to a lowering of disability risk.
The take-away? Dogs are pure magic, and you should go to the RSPCA today and get one.
If you see anything that makes you howl, fetch for felicity@medicalrepublic.com.au
