Owning a pet isn’t the secret to staying young, say scientists
OWNING a pet does not seem to slow down the ageing process after all, according to scientists.
A new study, published in The BMJ, showed that pet owners appeared to have the same physical and psychological health levels as non-pet owners.
There are long-standing claims that animal companionship might be linked to human health, with around half of British households owning a pet. With more than 10 per cent of older adults saying pet ownership was their major source of companionship, University College London (UCL) and Cambridge University examined if pets influenced the biomarkers of healthy ageing.
Using the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing (ELSA), they analysed data from more than 8,700 adults with an average age of 67. A third owned a pet – 18 per cent dogs, 12 per cent cats, and three per cent another animal.
After they took into account variables such as smoking and drinking, they found no evidence of a strong association of any type of pet ownership with walking speed, lung function, standing up, grip strength, leg raises, balance, nor three blood inflammatory markers, memory, or depression.
The researchers pointed out that as it was an observational study, no firm conclusions could be drawn about cause and effect. But Prof Richard Watt, of UCL, said: “At least in the present cohort study … animal companionship seems to confer essentially no relation with standard physical and psychological biomarkers of ageing.”