Cat Ownership Correlated With Heart Health

Ant tips us to a story making the rounds lately, based on reporting a couple of weeks old, that owning a cat could cut your heart attack risk by one third. No such effect was seen from dog ownership, but the researchers say that could be because there weren't enough dog owners in the study population to provide meaningful statistics. The study: "...analyzed data on 4,435 Americans, aged 30 to 75, who took part in the federal government's second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, which ran from 1976-1980. According to the data in the survey, 2,435 of the participants either owned a cat or had owned a cat in the past, while the remaining 2,000 had never done so. [The] team then tracked rates of death from all causes, including heart and stroke. Cat owners 'appeared to have a lower rate of dying from heart attacks' over 10 years of follow-up compared to feline-free folk..."

Cats vs Dogs flamewar on /.?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well... it's something new I guess....

(awaits inevitable corrections)

Obviously

[Anne Thwacks]

Obviously, they died of furball before they were old enough to have a heart attack.

LOL

[16Chapel]

I'm in ur aortas, reducing your stress

K thnx bai

I always knew it!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Pussy is actually good for you, while having a bitch in your life makes no noticible improvements.

My cats

[foistboinder]

They obviously have never seen our cats. Stress reducers? I don't think so.

Hmmm

[thedeadswiss]

Does this mean that I can use my health insurance to pay for cat food?

meow!

[Anonymous Coward]

Cats rock!

Reminds me of something

[Espectr0]

I don't remember the exact words. If anyone remembers better, please post.

Catbert, evil director of human resources.

Catbert: Did you know that petting a cat results in lower blood pressure?

(employee begins to rub catbert's tummy)

Catbert: HA HA, IT'S A HEALTH BENEFIT! NOW I WILL CUT DOWN EVERYONE'S SALARY!!!

Re:Obviously

[The_Jeff_79]

Yeap, Hard to die of a Heart Attack when your smothered in your sleep

Re:Global Warming Correlated with Pirate Number

[morgan_greywolf]

This could be a bizarre coincidence, or it might be something that we had no idea about before.

There have been previous studies that included dogs and other pets that have found similar correlations. The basic idea that many believe is the cause of such correlations is that having a loving pet helps to reduce stress, which, of course, has been proven to reduce the chance of heart attack and stroke.

So, IOW, anything you might do to relieve stress -- pet your cat (or other pet), exercise (good one with additional proven health and heart benefits), shoot your mother-in-law, etc, is good for your heart.

Hmm?

[Canosoup]

Does this include looking at hundreds of Lolcat pictures a day?

Re:Makes Sense

[Tinfoil]

Dogs are dumb, slobbering beasts that make you take them outside to take a shit.

Rather than shitting in (hopefully) a single location and forcing you to clean it up on a near daily basis lest it offend their senses and they decide the clean, but unfolded, laundry would be a better target?

I do have cats, and I tend to think I would rather have cats than dogs. Besides, that is what I have a human spawn for.

Puppies/Human Larvae are cute.
One must be ever vigilant to protect your property from puppies/spawn
One must clean up the little.... treats left behind.
Neither listen well to verbal commands
Neither will shovel the drive or mow the lawn

Clearly children are nothing more than hairless dogs that have developed the ability to walk upright.

Ownership??

[Nonillion]

You mean Guardianship. Humans need to discard the notion that "animals" are nothing more than property. You don't own an animal anymore than you would own your children. They have personalities, wants and needs just like us humans. I have three cats, they are family members, not some inanimate objects that act like they're alive.

Re:Ownership??

[yivi]

And yet you say "I have three cats", and not "three cats live with me" or something of the sort.

If you are going to be ridiculously politically correct, please go all the way.

Thanks and regards.

I.-

Yes, we know

[smooth wombat]

It came up eleven days ago [slashdot.org].

Besides, as one of the posters to my journal already noted, cats age people like people age wine and cheese.

Re:My cats

[Lumpy]

Exactly, I have a 1 year old persian that is Evil Incarnate. The little bastard will happily sneak up on you in the middle of the night and then decide to crawl under the covers to steal heat. Then if you move that's the sign to play and you awake in a shriek of "WHAT HE HELL! STOP CLAWING ME!" and then it gives you the innocent kitty look so you dont throw it across the room.

This cat does a lot of other things that has me convinced it's trying to kill me. rushes down the stairs to get fed and then stops on the second step from the bottom so you almost trip and fall to your death for example. I am sure if it could figure out how to flush the toilet when I was in the shower it would be doing it.

I am 100% convinced that cats hate humans. I am certain that if my cat was scaled up to large dog size I would be eaten within 24 hours.

Not Worth It

[Kristopher Johnson]

Given a choice between an early death or living with a cat, I'll take death.

Re:My cats

[Ihlosi]

I am certain that if my cat was scaled up to large dog size I would be eaten within 24 hours.

In other news, people who keep lions or tigers are unlikely to die of heart attacks, because their pets can sense who in the herd is weak and sick.

Re:LOL

[oodaloop]

so i really can has cheezburger?

Re:Cats vs Dogs flamewar on /.?

[Bloke down the pub]

I think we need to get it into terms we can understand.

Cats suck, because they use emacs. Dogs rule because they use vi.

In other news...

[MORB]

...Pirates reduce global warming.

Re:Global Warming Correlated with Pirate Number

[khallow]

Obviously, we must find out... for Science!

CAT joke DOG joke

[kcdoodle]

Q: How do you make a cat sound like a dog?
A: Spray him with lighter fluid. One match and he goes WOOF.


Q: How do you make a dog sound like a cat?
A: Dip him in liquid nitrogen and cut him in a band-saw. He goes MMMMMEEEEOOOWWW.

(Funnier with good sound effects.)
I know this killed my karma, but I had to share these.

Re:Ownership??

[TheLink]

If somebody says "three children live with me", they might be put on a sex offender list the next day, etc. ;)

Re:Ownership??

[fishthegeek]

Members of the family huh? You do realize that the only reason your cats do not eat you is that you are bigger than they are.

Because we've actually learned about research

[keineobachtubersie]

And we understand that "correlation does not equal causation" is a caution given to ignorant students to prevent them from assuming causation in cases where it doesn't belong. It is not a hard anf fast rule, and should not be used to discuss subjects like this as it's too simplistic to be useful (unless you are a freshman science student).

In other words, it's a nice saying to help students remember to be diligent, but HAS NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on real research. Researchers make great efforts to deal with confounding variables because they know what they're doing. This stud did not indicate which confounding variables were controlled for, so your assumption about causality is impossible to support with the given evidence.

We also understand that very often, a correlation does in fact indicate some kind of causal relationship.

So, the fact that you don't know why it's a troll is exactly why it's troll, he has the same deficiency of understanding that you do.

Re:Correlation is not causation.

[JrOldPhart]

Bargain cat scans.

Re:My cats

[JrOldPhart]

It is my belief that the mice put cats here as part of their experimentation with the brainchild of "Deep Thought". Mostly to watch our reaction to them.

Re:Makes Sense

[j_166]

Cats are tastier with garlic, whereas dogs tend to have a muskier aftertaste. Both go well with a nice Chardonnay.

Useless.

[SilentBob0727]

I never use cat. I use less, awk, head, tail, grep and sometimes vim to discover the contents of my log files.

But now there's proof that cat can help my heart... !

Cat Owns YOU

[maz2331]

Everyone knows that you don't own a cat, the cat owns you. We don't even need "In Soviet Russia" on this one, it's pretty much universal.

Re:Cats Purr

[autophile]

Wikipedia's article on "purr" claims that all cats DO purr, but their link is to an article on cheetahs. Anyone else?

Sure, I am known to purr on occasion.

--Rob

Re:Cats vs Dogs flamewar on /.?

[Z34107]

Cats suck, because they use emacs. Dogs rule because they use vi.

Actually, cats use cat. Maybe some echo redirection.

The truth about cats

[DrVomact]

It may be simpler than that - it may be that there is nobody else in the house to call 911 when you suffer an accident.

Call 911? Heck, my cats can do that and perform CPR while administering Last Rites, just in case.

Seriously...my theory is that cats help reduce vermin about the house, thus contributing to the health of their designated care-providers. (Heaven forfend that anyone should ever think he owns a cat.) My house used to be overrun with those huge cockroaches that they call "palmetto bugs" here in Texas. After I got the cats, no more roaches (but fat and happy cats). They go after anything that wiggles, scuttles, or flies around. (Though their success rate on flying prey leaves something to be desired. Hmm note to self: must look into breeding flying cats.)

The association between humans and cats has been a long and mutually beneficial one. The only major issue to trouble this partnership was the invention of doors by an unknown carpenter circa 3800 B.C. (oddly enough, the unlucky inventor suffered a fatal fall down a steep stairway soon after filing the patent). Ever since, cats have been sitting in front of doors and meowing. Most people think the cat wants out (or in), but not so: the cat is demanding that all doors everywhere be permanently removed. A closed door is an offense to all cat-kind.

Re:Makes Sense

[Alsee]

Clearly children are nothing more than hairless dogs that have developed the ability to walk upright.

Meet little Billy! [readingeagle.com]

-

Re:My cats

[fm6]

I am certain that if my cat was scaled up to large dog size I would be eaten within 24 hours.

Of course! The sole purpose of the human race is to keep cats fed! Any cat will tell you that.

Re:Pseudo-science

[thanasakis]

Single people die earlier than married people.

But I bet that married people are more willing to die!..