The verdict on whether pets can help you live longer is a bit astonishing, even to the researchers who discovered it. University of California, Riverside health researchers Howard Friedman and Leslie Martin analyzed data collected from an 80-year study of 1,500 people. The study, initiated in 1921 by psychologist Lewis Terman, is one of the only long-term studies that follow people from their childhood onward.
About the Findings
Subjects in their 60s were asked detailed questions about how often they played with pets. After fourteen years researchers analyzed mortality data. Results suggest that interacting with pets played no role in the participants’ likelihood of surviving. The results were the same even when Friedman and Martin examined only people who were socially isolated, for whom a close relationship with an animal might be more important.
However, a more recent meta-analysis, published in the journal Circulation in 2019, came to a different conclusion. Looking at data from studies between 1950 and May 2019, they found that dog owners live longer than those without a dog. The benefit was greatest for those who had a history of heart attack and there was a 65% reduced risk of mortality.
The Value of Relationships
Friedman and Martin concluded that being connected to other people in their community did, in fact, enhance the subjects’ longevity. These findings seem to conflict with other data about the value of social relationships for people as they age. For example, research published in 1980 found that the one-year survival rate for people discharged from a coronary care unit was greater for those with a pet.
Ground-breaking research in the late 1970s by psychologists Ellen Langer and Judith Rodin found that just having to care for a houseplant kept elderly nursing home residents happier and alive longer. Though that finding was cited as a reason to give residents more control over their environment, it follows that a sense of responsibility and emotional interaction — the same emotions involved for pet owners — might account for the improved longevity.
The Benefits of Animal Companionship
Certainly interacting with animals has been found to improve quality of life. Animal-assisted therapy programs that use pets as mascots or therapy animals are widely implemented in hospitals and nursing homes and have been shown to improve depression and loneliness in the elderly.
In Japan, where concerns about allergic reactions and bites have kept nursing homes from employing live pets, robotic therapy animals have been substituted with much success. In particular, Paro, a robotic seal with artificial fur and a lovable face, has been used in several countries, including Japan, Denmark, Sweden, Italy and the United States. A 2011 paper published in Gerontology describes the improvement in depression scores of residents in nursing homes employing the robotic seal.
People rely on dogs for company, friendship, and affection. Recent data suggests that they may also extend your life. And it is not only dogs. A study published in the Journal of Vascular and Interventional Neurology in 2009 looking at over 4000 people over 20 years found that people who own cats have a decreased risk for death due to heart attack or stroke.
