Owning A Dog Is Good For Your Heart
November 11, 2019
If you’re the kind of dog owner who loves to get out and walk with your dog, and enjoys playing with them as much as you do cuddling, there’s good news for you. All that loving interaction with your dog is good for your heart.
We’re not just talking about how good loving your dog makes you feel, we’re speaking scientifically. Your dog’s unconditional love and the active lifestyle a dog demands is good for your heart health.
Science-based evidence from the American Heart Association found that dog owners live longer than dog-less people.
So how does owning a dog increase longevity?
The study analyzed data from more than 3.8 million participants from 10 research studies dating from 1950 right up to this year. The results showed that dog owners have almost a third lower risk of developing cardiovascular disease.
The findings of the study also suggests that dog ownership is associated with positive health outcomes for people suffering from heart disease, compared to people who did not own a dog:
- 33% lower risk of early death for heart attack survivors living alone
- 27% reduced risk of early death for stroke survivors living alone
- 24% reduced risk of all-cause mortality
- 31% lower risk of death by heart attack or stroke
- 65% lower risk in dog owners who had survived a heart attack
According to this new study and a separate meta-analysis, Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes, published in the American Heart Association journal Circulation:
“While these non-randomized studies cannot 'prove' that adopting or owning a dog directly leads to reduced mortality, these robust findings are certainly at least suggestive of this, and provide good, quality data indicating dog ownership is associated with reduced cardiac and all-cause mortality," Glenn N. Levine, M.D., Pet Ownership and Cardiovascular Risk.
This research is part of an ongoing, wider study on Pet Ownership and Cardiovascular Risk, and the association between dog ownership with reduced cardiac risk factors and cardiovascular events.
It could be that a dog owner’s lifestyle is more active and certainly more companionable that makes it a benefit to cardiovascular wellness, but there’s also the fact that humans and animals are destined to live simpatico. The bond that develops between pets and pet-parents is undeniably one that infuses the heart with warmth and triggers health-giving hormones in the brain. Have you hugged your pet today?