Women with pets may be less likely to die of a stroke.
Generally healthy US women over age 50 were less likely to die of a cardiovascular event, such as a stroke, if they had a cat or a dog, a new study found.
Owning a dog requires more physical activity, but owning a cat instead of a dog was still tied to a lower risk of death from stroke.
According to the National Death Index, 11 of every non-pet owners had died of cardiovascular disease since 2006, whereas only 7 of every 1000 pet owners died from heart disease.
Female pet owners were almost 40 per cent less likely to die of a stroke, whereas male pet owners were just as likely to have died as their non-pet owner counterparts.
The study was conducted by National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) between 1988 to 1994, studying almost 4,000 adults age 50 and older without major illnesses. Participants were asked questions about their height, weight, physical activity and other health risk factors, like smoking. More than half of the participants were either overweight or obese.
About 35 per cent owned a pet, most often a dog. The pet owners were more likely younger, married, and more often white.
"Anecdotally, we believe that walking a dog is good for the heart, reducing life pressure and blood pressure as well," said senior author Jian Zhang of the Jiann-Ping Hsu College of Public Health at Georgia Southern University in the U.S.
"I strongly believe that the putative benefits of keeping a dog have not yet fully translated into reality, and we found that pet owners did not walk pets, certainly, dogs, more often than others," Zhang said. "This explains why owning a dog did not reduce CVD (cardiovascular disease) mortality among dog owners."
According to Zhang, cat owners may have a personality that protects from heart diseases, rather than cats having an effect on heart health.
The results of the study should not be interpreted as encouragement to get pets, he said.
"Pets are good, but have to be kept responsibly."
Although the results are encouraging to female pet owners, not everyone was impressed with the study.
"In my study, there was a tendency for pet owners to have a higher risk of dying," said Dr Richard F. Gillum of Howard University College of Medicine in Washington D.C., who was not part of the new study but did study the same NHANES surveys.
According to him, there was no association in pets and survival in most of the findings.
"Data from NHANES are really inadequate to settle the question, since one can only determine there was a pet in the household, but not the number of pets or whether the study participant was the owner, cared for it or interacted with it," Gillum said. "So we need to wait for better studies before making any firm conclusions about pets and survival among their owners."
"Even if there were a reduction of death from stroke among women with cats, of what importance is that in public health terms if they are just as likely to die as other women, just from another cause," he said.