Do Cats Reduce the Risk of a Heart Attack?
A study by the University of Minnesota’s Stroke Research Center presented Thursday at the American Stroke Association meeting found that people who had previously or currently owned cats were less likely to die from heart attack and other cardiovascular disease.
The study examined data from 4,435 people, ranging in age from 30 to 75, participating in ongoing research with the National Health and Nutritional Examination Study. The researchers found that over a 20-year period, participants who had never owned a cat were 40 percent more likely to die from heart attack, and 30 percent more likely to die from any kind of cardiovascular disease.
The researchers don’t know exactly what causes the health benefit, but lead study investigator Dr. Adnan Qureshi believes it may be related to the stress-reducing effect a cat has on its owner. He admits, however, that the personality type of a cat owner may be the major contributing factor.
“Maybe cat owners tend not to have high-stress personalities, or they are just the type of people that are not highly affected by anxiety or high-stress situations,” Qureshi said.
Some of the controversy over this study comes from previous studies that showed a greatly increased rate of heart attack survival for dog owners, but no benefit at all for cat owners.
Source: ABC News
- Do you think that cats lower heart attack risk? Or is it possible that cat owners lead a less stressful life?
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it’s probably because cat owners don’t have demanding careers or stressful lives… if you work 2 or 3 jobs, you’re not going to have any kind of pet b/c you won’t have any time for it… it’s not that cats lower your risk of heart attack
Cats are always very relaxed and bring us much laughter and joy.
Don, you are an idiot.
There’s a rumour that cats have nine lives so when they are blessed with a good owner who treats them right they give a few of their live’s away
CHLOE - ouch! I love cats, but don’t think they have anything to do with heart attacks, it’s hte lifestyle of their owners in general that must have the greatest impact… peace
I have a heart condition and my cat knows it. Every morning after I have eaten my breakfast and I am sitting on my sofa he comes to me and insists on laying across my chest. He always places his heart over my heart and I can feel his beating. When I am having a heart episode he comes to me and lays close to my chest. Animals have inner instincts that humans will never have. It is why they can hear, see, smell and sense things before they happen. Yes, I believe cats can lower your heart rate.
My cat lays at the foot of my bed. If I accidently dislodge the little witch she immediately retaliates with a vicious bite to my toes in the middle of the night.
I rather think she will be the cause of my future heart attack,.
I will gladly offer her up for any scientific studies you might have, let us really test the power of the cat.
Did they control for allergies? Heart disease and heart attacks have a well-documented immune component. Given that people with allergies have an overactive immune system, and that people with allergies don’t own cats, maybe people without allergies, i.e. pet owners, are less likely to die from heart attacks.
A lot of people don’t get treatment for pet allergies; they just avoid animals instead. The survey people would have to ask.
Don,
I went to school full time and worked full time, I also spent 24 years in the military (U.S.) and I’ve had cats except when I was over seas. I believe that’s a bit stressful along with moves every 3 years. I’ve had to put cats down and that alone is a stressful long lasting event, as much as having a friend commit suicide, one kiled by a DUI driver and my sister murdered, along with various militarry members killed. I hope you rethink or rephrase your comment.
Well, I do have a demanding career in management for a high profile worldwide company. On average I work about 55-60 hours a week. I’ve always been labeled “Type A” and stress is definitely felt by me on an almost daily basis. I may not work two or three jobs, but I easily put in the hours at the one I do have. I have a husband who works a full-time 40+ schedule as a Network Engineer for utility company. We have five cats and they’re the bonus that awaits us when we come home after a long day. They’re very calming and they teach us to appreciate the simple things in life. I can think of nothing more relaxing than to come home, plop down for a few minutes with a furry attention whore.
Ask any Buddhist cats are experts at meditation. I am sure they can help any one Zen out and prevent a heart attack or stroke.
I wonder if quiescent toxoplasmosis infection has some protective effect. Some diseases have mostly ill effects, but some benefits as well.
Or a more mundane explanation might be that purring has a calming effect on people, as it does on the animal itself. Sort of like a massage.
They don’t reduce the risk of heart attack when they come running or jumping out of no where …
Why should Don rephrase or rethink his comment, Eric? He’s just voicing his opinion? Should he not have one because it disagrees with yours? I’ll admit I think he should have phrased it better but his point of saying that the environment is the major indicator of heart health is not any less valid than a cat bringing good health, even if you don’t agree with it.
My wife had two cats… One I could deal with, one that hated me (and I hated him)… I’m pretty sure he upped my risk of heart attack. btw — I’m mildly allergic to cats.
Cats TEACH you to just accept, be patient, its useless to get mad at them (they dont care). After becoming complaisant with whatever a cat can dish out, youre just ok with everyone and everything.
Ouch! People calling each other idiots–I bet Internet users are more likely to have heart attacks than people who sit quietly with their cats.
Poor Don… he apparently has never experienced the joy of owning a cat (or being owned by a cat). When I got divorced a number of years back, we had a dog and two cats. I kept the two cats because my incredibly demanding job required a lot of travel. Unlike dogs, cats are fairly self-sufficient and an owner can leave them for a few days and feel comfortable knowing they’ll be probably “punished” upon return home
Leave a cat with clean litter boxes, plenty of dry food and water, and they’ll be fine. I still have my two cats and can’t even begin to tell you (Don) the peace they bring into my life after another hectic day at work.
I can vouch for the good effects of having cats-I have 3 right now, and I have had cats for 20 years now. If you want to learn to truly relax, just watch a cat. Having cats definitely has taught me to be calmer than I was-they are fine companions.
I have had 2 jobs at a time, gone through a divorce, had a few changes of address-all in the company of cats. Stress, job and otherwise, has pretty much been a big part of my life-cats have helped!
” I can think of nothing more relaxing than to come home, plop down for a few minutes with a furry attention whore.”
LOL! Well said.
Quite an accurate description, Karen!! Love it!
I believe I may be the first person to think it is a little of both. I think people who like animals (cats, dogs, birds, anything) are generally more calm, gentle and loving as compared to people who have never known what its like to share your heart with somone who you can’t have a conversation with. People who prefer cats may have to be a bit less demanding, as we know cats don’t always greet you at the door with kisses the way dogs do. So to that degree, I believe cat/pet owners are less stressed and more happy, easy-going people than those who are too uptight and worried about cat hair in their house to have one. On the flip side, I also believe that having a friend who loves you unconditionally and who will curl up on your lap and purr has got to be good for the heart. Just looking at a sleeping cat makes most people feel calm and peaceful. Of course everyone agrees, less stress means less disease in many cases.
One who raise cat is kind.
A kind person will “Reduce the Risk of a Heart Attack”.
It is logical.
—-THEY —-A WONDERFUL PURRING /LOVING CAT ACTUALLY CAUSES DEEP SADNESS DUE TO THE LOSS AT DEATH–”-HEART BREAK” ACTUALLY ! NO LIE—TOO ATTACHED TO SOME WONDERFUL ANIMALS WHO NEED HOMES AND CARE ETC.NO ACTUAL HEART ATTACK AS YET ! REGARDS, MJA/ 2/25/08 6:42 PM
I would be dead from asthma long before my heart could reap any benefits!
I love cats. I’ve had several; I loved them and they loved me. But the fact that cat owners have fewer heart attacks doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the cats themselves lowering the owners’ heart attack risks. It might mean that, but it might not. Correlation does not mean causation. I find myself tending to agree with Don: it could just be that cat owners’ personalities, life styles, etc. contribute to a healthy heart. Or, high stress, type A personalities tend not to own cats. (The key words there are “necessarily”, “might”, “could be”, and “tend to”, of course.)
And I thought Mary’s comment about toxoplasmosis and Pat’s about allergies were definitely worth thinking about.
It’s an interesting study and it’s fun to speculate about it.
I don’t think it’s fair to say that cat owners do not have demanding careers and stressful lives. If that were the case you’d have to argue that parents can’t possibly have demanding careers or stressful lives, as children are a much bigger responsibility than cats. I for one have a demanding career and sometimes stressful life, but I spend a great deal of time with my cat. I try not to carry my stress home with me. I’m laid back, but busy busy busy. I’ve learned to manage my stress. I live with my boyfriend who has a demanding career, full time grad school and a somewhat stressful life, but we leave work and school at work and school and constantly give our love and attention to our kitty. She’s awesome and I know she always helps me feel less anxious about the day. And she makes me so happy because she’s the cutest kitty in the world.
OMFG, does nobody nowadays use science anymore? Correlation != Causality, mkay? Jeez….
I personally tend to agree with the cat owners are less likely to have stress in their lives, because stressed people do not add more in their lives by adding pets to their regimen…
Oh, and my cat does greet me at the door, follow me around, play fetch and hide and seek. Seriously. She’s like a dog!!
I believe my cats greatly reduce the stress in my life. The warmth of a purring cat in my lap slows my breathing and I can feel a release of muscle tension. I believe I can endure more stress in my life style because I have three destresser felines at home. It is not that I go looking for stress, but my job has some built in.
I think the cat actually contributes to the lower risk. My husband, who would not consider himself a cat person, but relented for the sake of the kids, now LOVES how relaxing the cat is to have on his lap. Supposedly their purring has a frequency that is very therapeutic.
Perhaps the definitive study could be done on cat owners like my husband — who wouldn’t have chosen a cat himself, but finds one in his lap every evening anyway…
The typical cat will try to escape a tense situation; so anyone who wishes to be around a cat is required to present a calm demeanor or — no cat. I’ll agree with Don here, the likelihood that a cat “causes” reduction in vascular disease effects is in my opinion essentially nil. But but but… The owner’s own demeanor, and possibly the habits of behavior that one must learn to prevent cat-escape, could easily result in long term calming effects that tend to be associated with reduced vascular complications.
I feel a bit like that sort of person; I am a computer software geek with multiple customers, trying to start a business, supporting my wife’s IT needs, big on aerobic exercise and generally regarded as a bit overdriven. But I have learned to calm down in order to relate to our two cats. BTW cats are like most other living things: They are at the same time priceless works of nature’s art and (usually) not very expensive to maintain. I am biased, however: One of the cats has coloration nearly identical to that of an owl and behavior to match. Simply a beautiful gift of nature. calming indeed!
kraziquban:
It maybe news to you that (gentle)* bites are the cats’ equivalent of kisses and a sign of affection. If cats get hostile the use their claws. Unfortunately our overreaction born out of our ignorance scares them often out of bestowing this gesture of fondness upon us.
*Cats do have a significantly higher pain threshold than we, and it is therefore up to us to guide them to treat us to a gentler version of their “kisses”, instead of frightening them out of it.
My family grew up with dogs and cats. However, I have no animals by choice. Grad school and my career fulfills me. I work in the medical field 6 days a week, and am faced with human misery and suffering every day. For stress reduction I train and participate in triathlons and mountain bike races, enjoy the company of friends and family (especially the kids), and do volunteer work. I sleep 6-8 hrs a night, and have a BMI of 22. At 45, my energy level matches, or surpasses, the time I was in the military.I have cut out all meat except fish in my diet, my cholesterol levels are cardio protective, I don’t watch commercial T.V., need to have the latest gadgets, feel the need to “keep up with the Jonses”, or dirve like I’m in NASCAR.
Health is subjective. Do cats and dogs have a calming effect on people? Sure. Do they have a calming effect on all people? Probably not. At this moment I am waiting for the equstrian, fish, and even porcine studies to come out claiming that these animals reduce heart disease, allow you to live longer, and cures alopecia. The point here is that lifestyle choices, outlook (thank you Patch Adams), genetics, and environment trumps all other effects on health. Do animals help? for some they do. But the obese person with a family history of heart disease, diabetes, and hypertension is still playing with a loaded gun. That pet may take a few bullets out of that gun, but lifestyle changes is the biggest step in emptying the chambers. (Now if only you can get that pet to dial 911, there goes a few more bullets).
cat “love” bites are a high honor. mine are very gentle with their teeth, no doubt whatsoever they are bestowing affection. mine routinely marks me by phlegming (which isn’t my favorite thing) but i have to laugh at his insistence on showing his love in his preferred method.
Just as an aside: saying that maybe stressed-out, Type A people tend not to own cats is not the same as saying cat owners do not have stressful lives. I didn’t mean to imply that; sorry if I did!
All I’m saying is, correlation does not necessarily mean causation.
I think more “high-stress” career people own cats than own dogs. Cats are easier and more self-sufficient. Dogs have to be walked, or taken to (yikes) “doggie day care”. My family has always had both cats and a dog. With cats, you can even leave them alone over a weekend, if you put out lots of food and water. Dogs? Not really.
I like dogs, but I love cats. In fact, I am a high-strung person, and cats are more relaxing to be around. They are a lot less needy and demanding. A dog is like a human child. People I know who love to have dogs around are often craving something that needs them 24/7. I don’t like feeling that I’m abandoning a pleading soul whenever I don’t feel like playing with a dog. It seems like dogs never really grow up, while cats do. For my temperament, I like cats better. They are often very loving and perceptive, while being more dignified and less needy than dogs. Being around a cat relaxes me, while being around a dog does not.
I think that if you LIKE cats and find them relaxing company, they would surely be good for both heart “and soul”. Dogs too. Same with iguanas, or ferrets. : )
Another fruitful area of research might be the effect of having two sets of needle-sharp claws embedded into one’s knees when a cat is sitting in one’s lap. It has often struck me that the experience is remarkably similar to acupuncture. Might it not have a tonic effect on the cardio-vascular system?
I agree that it’s likely a combination of factors that leads to these results. I’ve got 5 cats, and I probably match up with a lot of characteristics of a “typical” cat owner; perhaps it’s those characteristics that lead to feline ownership that cause reduced heart disease, not the other way around. However, there’s no denying that cats do have a calming effect on people. When I’m stressed, they seem extra sweet, and I find that comforting and calming. When I was pregnant, my one mother cat, who is usually content to sit by herself most of the time, was glued to my side the entire time. Since BabyK arrived, Mamma Cat gets concerned when she cries and even nips me on the arm if she thinks I’m not responding to BabyK’s cries in an effective or timely fashion. They are all just incredibly in tune with my physical and emotional states, so I wouldn’t jump to discount the presence of the cat itself as being beneficial. If nothing else, there’s the fact that several of my cats sit on my back and sleep if I lie down on my stomach, and I rarely sleep as well as I do when there’s a purring cat curled up on my back!
Ive had cats for over 40 years and currently have four. I like cats. That said, I think that anyone who can survive the presence of cats is probably by and large immune to any other stressors.
We have 2 cats, 1 dog, 3 teenage boys and 1 teenage daughter. Two of the boys think that cats are definitely unmanly pets and didn’t want to be around them. Their disdain was immense. The cats sensed this and thus tormented the boys by jumping on their laps and working them into submission. It didn’t take long before we would catch the boys cuddling those cats if they thought no one was watching….
So, the calming effect of unwanted cats should be the question….
My personal theory is that cat owners (and I’m one of them) have to jump up off the sofa every 10-18 minutes to either let the cat in or out. Therefore, cat owners get 78% more exercise than non-cat-owners. I drew this conclusion from tightly controlled experiments, employing rigorously scientific methodologies, conducted during last week’s episode of ‘Law and Order.’
Pets can definitely increase your health. I live with one dog and two cats. They provide unconditional love. However, the cats do drive me crazy sometimes.
I think cats release chemicals to cause us to live longer so that they will have company and a continuous stream of pet food. We are after all here only for them as any cat owner knows.
And no I’m not serious.
still….
Anyone who can tolerate a finicky cat has to be less sensitive to stress to begin with.
(Just kidding. I’m a proud, and slightly-less-stressed, cat owner.) Meow!
— Peter
Cats have powers. They have brainwaves which extend past their skulls. They alter spacial energies. They are telepathist. They have ESP. They control acoustic phenomenon with frequencies between 27 and 44 hertz and these sound waves created at those particular frequencies trigger the healing process in feline bones. Purring is believed to have a similar effect to ultrasound treatment on humans. Cats are very old beings and interact with our old brains and subconscious. Their ancestors of direct tissue and blood knew our ancestors of direct tissue and blood in a time line. The secrete pheromones. They carry and are host to good bacteria. They are living spirits in an atomic cloud of which we are part of. They are part of magnetic-molecular-atomic phenomena. They perceive us with feline vision and perception and consider themselves our conservators. They are not Homo sapiens, they are Felis silvestris catus, and as we have powers, theirs differ from us and they have spent almost 10,000 years with us. Probably they all are divergent by breed to some degree. Mine are the breed known as Coon Cats or a slight mix. It is hard to say if we or they are the aliens. We don’t know everything about them, but we do know we like to imitate them when they curl their paws and you have to admit, they do make us laugh when they are kittens, and pronk.
I sleep better and dream better with cats and dogs.
Maybe anyone who has any sort of heart defect dies young the first time he does a load of laundry and finds a cat sleeping in it? It would keep him from being part of the study.
Seriously, cats are soothing. Cat owners probably have fewer problems with chipped enamel from grinding teeth, too.
As for needing a less stressful lifestyle in order to support a cat, this concept is clearly the result of Aristotelean logic– that is, it is a hypothesis for which no evdience has been gathered, nor ever will be by the person who made it, who said it because he thought it made him sound clever. The people I have seen who had cats were almost all operating at the outside limits of capacity, and loved cats precisely for the comfort they give.
SPCAs and animal shelters often identify animals that have the potential to be Therapy Pets. These animals - mostly dogs and cats, but other critters are also used - make the rounds of children hospitals, nursing homes, and other institutions, offering their (mostly) silent comfort. Reduction of blood pressure, normalization of heart rates, and responses from the unresponsive have been regularly documented. For those without allergies or childhood fears, having a pet clearly can offer good health benefits. As a Type A person with multiple jobs and stress galore, my animals (both dogs and cats) have truly helped me to have a quality of life I might otherwise not have. Even the grief of losing one doesn’t deter me from opening my home and heart to others.
if stress helps decrease the risk of heart attack then the cat owners probably because they have a cat because they have company all the time and they are less stressed and have time to have an animal.
A friend and a relative from both sides of the country who knew our feline affection saw the study in an online newspaper and sent me the link last week. Having no children, my spouse and I loved our two cats as our own and wholeheartedly agreed with the results of the study. I was about to comment, but sadly, one of our bundles of joy passed away overnight three nights ago, finally giving into some health challenges, being younger and not as physically strong as his mate. It was devastating - we loved Kitty very much and the pain he experienced in his final hours still lingers in our hearts.
At the same time, a relative of my mom’s passed away, a lady who had raised 4 children (sadly losing one later as a young adult), many grandchildren and who had cared for her husband the last few years and with whom she had just celebrated 60 years of marriage. A wonderful family person, she will be missed by all who knew her.
We travelled there last night, spending the morning at the funeral home, then returning a few hours ago. We also took Kitty with us for burial behind my mother’s beautiful home out in the country, respectful of what he’d given us. Though it was cold today, the sun was shining, a supportive family was near and our spirits were lifted by the warmth and love we experienced throughout the day. When we got home, we hugged Ginger more than usual, thankful for the unconditional affection he had given us, with our wish that he continue to warm our hearts.
Now 76, and having lived with at least 75 different cats through the years, and having worked at more than one stressful job, I feel they must have some therapeutic effect. I can remember well sitting down and playing with them after getting home from what might have been a very stressful day. Numerous articles have also stated that cats are kept at some work places which are considered stressful simply because the act of petting one seems to calm people. It has been a stressful experience every time I have lost one of them, but the very fact that there were always others that needed to be cared for, always brought me out of it as they made me feel needed. My husband of 56 years has become a cat lover through living with for so long. It’s such a joy to watch them that it chases away the blues many times.