Owning a dog cuts risk of heart attacks and other fatal diseases, study shows

FULL STORY by Ian Sample: The GUARDIAN......

QUOTE~~

Last month, the leader of Britain’s GPs, Helen Stokes-Lampard, warned that loneliness was as bad for human health as a long-term illness. The estimated 1.1 million lonely Britons are 50% more likely to die prematurely than those with good social networks, making loneliness as harmful to the nation’s health as diabetes. While people who live alone are not necessarily lonely, many in the Swedish study seemed to benefit disproportionately from having a dog around.

Working with her colleague, Mwenya Mubanga, on records from Sweden’s national registries, Fall also looked at deaths from any cause and found that people who lived alone with their dogs were a third less likely to die over the study period than those without dogs. For those in larger households, the risk of death was 11% lower among dog owners, the researchers write in Scientific Reports.

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