Owning a dog may lower your risk of dementia, a new study says.
The study, published in JAMA Network Open, evaluated whether owning a dog could also benefit brain health among 7,945 participants aged 50 and older. The results of this study are promising for pet owners.
From this data, the researchers found that pet ownership was associated with a lower chance of memory loss and poorer cognitive performance in people living alone. According to this study, the proportion of people living alone has been on the rise over the past few decades.
Among participants who lived alone, those with pets had less decline in mental and verbal fluency than those without animals. Research shows that owning a pet helped reduce feelings of loneliness, which is a risk factor for dementia.
However, the researchers found no significant differences among dog owners who lived with other people. They also added that further clinical research is needed to prove that pet ownership can slow cognitive decline in people over 50 who live alone.
“The number of people with dementia worldwide is estimated to increase from 57 million in 2019 to 153 million in 2050,” the study says. “Deterioration in cognitive function not only significantly impairs individual well-being, but also places an enormous burden on society's financial and health care systems, as well as on caregivers.”
The Spruce Pets / Bianca Cracky
In 2021, a similar study conducted by the University of British Columbia Okanagan found that cuddling dogs has proven benefits for human health.
The study assessed the mental state of 284 undergraduate students before and after the school's educational program met with service dogs from the K-12 Academic Retention Promotion (BARK) program.
“Although numerous studies have found that dog-mediated interventions significantly improve participants' well-being, little has been studied about what kinds of interactions provide the greatest benefit,” said the lead author of the study. said author Dr. John Tyler Binfett in a statement. . “I know spending time with a therapy dog is beneficial, but I didn't know why.”
Participants were randomly assigned to one of three treatment conditions: dog interaction treatment condition, touch or no-touch dog interaction, or handler-only condition with no dog present. Researchers asked participating students before and after the interaction to measure their self-perceptions of flourishing, positive and negative emotions, social connectedness, well-being, integration into the campus community, stress, homesickness, and loneliness. did.
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“Results show that participants in all conditions experienced improvements in well-being on several measures, but only participants in the direct contact condition reported significant improvements on all measures of well-being. ” said the study.
“Furthermore, direct interaction with a therapy dog through touch elicited greater health benefits than no-touch/indirect interaction or interaction with the dog handler alone.”
