Can Owning a Dog Make You Live Longer?
Owning a dog has been linked to a longer life and a lower chance of dying of a heart problem, according to a pair of studies. The research published in the American Heart Association-affiliated journal Circulation: Cardiovascular Quality and Outcomes is the latest to conclude that owning a dog could be beneficial to health.
Using Swedish national healthcare and dog ownership databases, professor Tove Fall at UppsalaUniversity and colleagues identified patients aged between 40 and 85-years-old who had experienced heart attacks or strokes between 2001 and 2021.
A total of 181,696 patients had a heart attack and 154,617 had a stroke in this period, with 5.7 percent percent of the former and 4.8 percent of the latter owning dogs, respectively.
Excerpted from Newsweek
