People who own dogs as pets are more likely to have healthy hearts, new research has revealed.
An ongoing European study is examining the association between pet ownership – specifically dog ownership – and cardiovascular health and risks.
Researchers began by gathering the baseline health and socioeconomic information of 2,000 people in the Czech Republic between January 2013 and December 2014.
Follow-up evaluations were scheduled to take place every five years until 2030.
The first results of the study, published today in Mayo Clinic Proceedings, found that dog ownership can have a positive impact on a person's heart health.
In the 2019 evaluation, the study looked at 1,769 participants with no history of heart disease.
Approximately 42% of subjects owned some kind of pet - 24.3% owned a dog and 17.9% owned another animal.
The researchers evaluated their overall health based on factors such as body mass index, diet, physical activity, smoking status, blood pressure and cholesterol.
Researchers compared the cardiovascular health scores of pet owners overall to those who did not own pets.
They then compared dog owners to other pet owners, and those who did not own pets.
In general, they found that people who owned a pet were more likely to report more physical activity, better diet and blood sugar at ideal level, and smoking at poor level.
This resulted in higher cardiovascular health scores than non-pet owners.
Compared with owners of other pets, dog owners were more likely to report physical activity and diet at ideal level.
The comparison of dog owners with non-dog owners yielded similar results.
"The greatest benefits from having a pet were for those who owned a dog, independent of their age, sex and education level," said Dr Andrea Maugeri, a researcher with the International Clinical Research Centre at St Anne's University Hospital in Brno.
He added that the study findings supported the idea that people could adopt, rescue or purchase a pet as a potential strategy to improve their cardiovascular health as long as pet ownership led them to a more physically active lifestyle.
