Las pets They can have positive effects on physical health: They can lower your blood pressure, cholesterol levels, and triglyceride levels, according to the American Heart Association (AHA).
Research supports this idea. A analysis A 2019 study of nearly 4 million people in the United States, Canada, Scandinavia, New Zealand, Australia, and the United Kingdom found that owning a dog was associated with 24% reduction in premature death from any cause. The benefit was even greater if the person had already had a heart attack or stroke. In these cases, those patients are 31% less likely to die from cardiovascular disease.
They are not the only advantages. small children who growing up with a dog or in a large family may have some protection later in life against a common inflammatory bowel disease known as Crohn’s diseaseaccording to a study presented at Digestive Disease Week (DDW).
“Our study appears to add to others that have explored the ‘hygiene hypothesis’ which suggests that a lack of exposure to microbes early in life can lead to a lack of immune regulation towards environmental microbes,” explains Williams Turpin, the study’s lead author and a research associate at Mount Sinai Hospital and the University of Toronto.
Dogs or cats?
The researchers used an environmental questionnaire to collect information from nearly 4,300 first-degree relatives of people with Crohn’s disease enrolled in the project. Crohn’s and Colitis Canada Genetic, Environmental and Microbial (CCC-GEM).
Using the responses to the questionnaire and historical data collected, the team analyzed several environmental factors, such as the size of the family, the presence of dogs or cats as domestic pets or the number of people who lived together. The analysis also included age at the time of exposure.
The study found that exposure to dogs, particularly between the ages of 5 to 15 years, was linked to healthy intestinal permeability and the balance between microbes in the gut and the body’s immune response, something that may help protect against Crohn’s disease. Similar effects were seen with exposure to dogs in all age groups. The same results were not seen with cats, but the researchers couldn’t figure out why.
“It could potentially be due to dog owners going out with their pets more often or living in areas with more green space, which has previously been shown to protect against Crohn’s disease.”
Advantages of a large family
Another protective factor seemed to be living with three or more family members during the first year of life, which was associated with composition of the microbiome later in life.
The findings are especially important, because the gut microbiome is thought to play a role in a number of health conditions, including inflammatory bowel disease, colorectal cancer, diabetes and high blood pressure.
The researchers hope their findings can help doctors ask patients detailed questions to determine who is most at risk. However, they urge caution in interpreting the results, because early-life environmental factors were assessed using questionnaires, suggesting a possible recall bias at recruitment. Therefore, the reasons why dog ownership and larger families appear to provide protection against Crohn’s disease remain unclear.
This information does not replace in any case the diagnosis or prescription by a doctor. It is important to go to a specialist when symptoms appear in case of illness and never self-medicate.
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