New research from Australia supports the belief that many pet owners have—it shows that pets are good for your health. The findings of this new study suggest that people who have pets are at less risk from heart disease than those who do not.
Ironically, this latest study on pets was intended to explode the myth that pets are good for your health. Earlier research on the benefits of owning pets received a lot of publicity, but the results were not good enough to convince the more skeptical doctors.
The new research was carried out over three years and examined 6000 people, the largest group yet involved in such a study. They took tests that measured a variety of different factors known to be involved in heart disease—blood pressure, and blood levels of cholesterol (胆固醇) and triglyceride (甘油三酯). Also, people were asked about their lifestyles.
The 800 people who owned pets had lower levels on each of the factors measured than those who did not own pets. The differences were even greater than those found in similar studies on people who switched to vegetarian diets or took up exercise. The study also showed that it did not matter what kind of pet was owned—a cat was as good as a dog—so the benefits could not be attributed to the exercise involved in walking a dog.
The question is, just how do pets manage to make their owners more healthy The obvious answer is that they make their owners feel more relaxed and happy. After all, what better way of getting rid of all that tension than by walking the dog or stroking the cat However, it is not that . While there is some evidence that an unhappy , such as the death of a partner, can be bad for a person’s health, at the moment there is little evidence that having good relationships has a positive effect on health.
As long as the exact way that pets make their owners healthier is unknown, many doctors will be reluctant to prescribe a pet instead of a pill for their patients. Nevertheless, the Australian scientist who organized this study commented that if a new drug was available that was as effective as simply having a pet, then this drug would undoubtedly be considered a breakthrough in the control of heart disease.
Which of the following is true about the new research