OWNING DOG LOWERS DEATH RISK, SAY MANY STUDIES

Don’t get too mad at that new puppy who piddled on the rug or chewed up your favorite slippers. In the long run, that scamp is going to help you live a longer and healthier life.

A pair of reports last fall found that dog owners have a lower risk of early death than people without canine companionship, particularly when it comes to dying from a heart attack or stroke.

Dog ownership decreases a person’s overall risk of premature death by 24 percent, according to researchers who conducted a review of the available medical evidence.

The benefit is most pronounced in people with existing heart problems. Dog owners had a 65 percent reduced risk of death following a heart attack and a 31 percent reduced risk of death from heart disease, the researchers said.

“People who had a heart attack prior to getting a dog had even more reduction in mortality,” said lead author Dr. Caroline Kramer, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of Toronto, Canada.

That analysis was backed up by a separate Swedish study, which found that heart attack and stroke victims who own dogs have a lower risk of dying, particularly if they live alone.

Owning a dog reduced a heart attack patient’s risk of death by 33 percent if they live alone, and 15 percent if they live with a partner or child, according to data from the Swedish National Patient Register. Similarly, death risk for dog-owning stroke survivors was 27 percent lower if they live alone and 12 percent lower for those living with someone, the Swedish researchers found.

Both reports were published in October in the journal Circulation: Cardiomore vascular Quality and Outcomes.

Part of the benefit is likely due to the physical activity that comes with having a dog, Kramer said. She undertook the research after noticing changes in her own behavior after she adopted her own dog, a miniature schnauzer named Romeo.

“At the time when I started work on this, I’d had my dog for a year and I noticed that I was walking way more,” Kramer said. “There’s a lot of evidence that people who have dogs walk way more. Their degree of physical exercise is much more.” Kramer and her colleagues reviewed

data for

than 3.8 million people taken from 10 separate studies, and concluded that owning a dog is associated with a long-term lower risk of premature death.

Previous research has found that dog owners tend to have lower blood pressure, healthier cholesterol levels and less stress, Kramer and her colleagues said in background notes.

One study discovered that “the act of petting a dog reduces blood pressure as much as medication to treat hypertension,” Kramer said.