Study Finds That Long-Term Pet Owners Have Better Brain Health
Sharing your life with a furry friend helps you stay active physically, since you take them for walks or play with them in the home. The fitness benefits don’t just end there. A new study finds that regularly having a pet may also help your brain stay fit.
Researchers from the American Academy of Neurology (AAN) recently looked at the impact of pet ownership on cognitive function. In a study involving more than 1,300 people, they found that those who owned a cat, dog, or other pet experienced slower cognitive decline that those who did not. The benefit increased the longer a person had a pet. The findings, which will be presented at AAN’s 74th Annual Meeting in April, provide further evidence that animal companionship is good for our health.
Dr. Tiffany Braley, study author and AAN member, says, says, “Prior studies have suggested that the human-animal bond may have health benefits like decreasing blood pressure and stress. Our results suggest pet ownership may also be protective against cognitive decline.”
To conduct their study, the team examined data from 1,369 older adults involved in the Health and Retirement Study, a large study of Medicare beneficiaries. Their average age was 65. Overall, 53% owned pets, with 32% having done so for at least five years. The sample was 88% white, 7% Black, 2% Hispanic, and 3% another ethnicity or race. All were cognitively healthy at the beginning of the study.
Throughout the study, participants underwent multiple cognitive tests with topics including subtraction, numeric counting, and word recall. The team looked at each person’s composite score, which was rated from 0 to 27, and compared it to the number of years the person had owned pets.
Over a period of six years, pet owners had a slower decline in cognitive scores. This was particularly true among long-term pet owners. These pet owners had, on average, a cognitive score 1.2 points higher than non-pet owners by the end of the six-year period. The biggest benefits among these long-term pet owners were found in Black participants, those with a college education, and men. The researchers say the reason why those particular groups benefitted more warrants further study.
As for the cause behind the overall brain health benefit, the team has a few theories.
Dr. Braley says, “As stress can negatively affect cognitive function, the potential stress-buffering effects of pet ownership could provide a plausible reason for our findings. A companion animal can also increase physical activity, which could benefit cognitive health. That said, more research is needed to confirm our results and identify underlying mechanisms for this association.”
The team acknowledged some limitations of the study, including that length of pet ownership was only examined at one point in time, so there wasn’t information on ongoing ownership.
If the findings hold true, though, sounds like you should slip Fluffy or Rover an extra treat tonight.
