Vet Blog: Information and Advice from Dr. Eric Barchas, DVM
08/14/08
 The evidence keeps rolling in. Pets are good for people.
I was quite excited when Discovery CME, an organization that offers online continuing education for physicians, confused me for an MD and sent me their schedule. Among their offerings is a program that seemed right up my alley. The program is entitled “Pets and People: The Power of the Health Connection.” You can watch it online if you have a high speed connection.
The program is intended to be educational material for human physicians. I found this surprising (and, on some levels, disturbing) because the narration and theme of the program make it seem much more like an after-school special than a serious scientific work.
However, it makes solid points.
Animal companionship leads to decreased stress in humans. This can help to prevent heart disease.
Dogs and cats can provide exceptional support for humans with disabilities ranging from blindness to quadriplegia to autism and beyond.
Dog walking promotes weight loss, muscle strength, and cardiovascular health.
Therapy dogs help with the emotional and physical recovery of patients in hospitals, assisted care facilities, and other institutions.
Pets provide valuable (and often critical) emotional support for humans with serious diseases such as cancer.
The above list does not even come close to being complete. If you want to read more about the ways in which having a pet benefits human health, check out the humanhealth tag on this blog. As well, you can find more information The Power of Paws, a website dedicated to spreading the word.
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07/31/08
 It is my ongoing passion to document the health benefits that people derive from their pets. In a recent post, I surmised that in the future it will be shown that pets help to prevent cognitive decline (memory loss and dementia) in the people they live with. The post was based upon two studies that showed social networks help to prevent cognitive decline. My thesis was that pets are part of social networks. Therefore, pets help to prevent memory impairment and dementia.
As I was browsing the internet the other day, I came upon another article. From the article:
The good news is that moderate exercise over most of your life can not only assist in the prevention of onset cognitive deterioration, but may actually be able to reverse existing damage, at least to a certain extent.
I was immediately reminded of one of my other previous posts: people with dogs get more exercise than people who don’t have dogs.
Having a dog leads to more exercise. More exercise leads to improved cognitive function. Connect the dots.
All that remains is for a study to show a direct link between pet ownership and improved cognitive function (rather than the indirect links that I keep making). I believe it is only a matter of time.
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07/15/08
I’d like to thank Denise from Pacifica, California for drawing my attention to an excellent paper that appeared in the July, 2008 American Journal of Critical Care. The paper touches on two of my favorite topics: the health benefits that humans derive from pets and evidence-based medicine.
The basic tenet of evidence-based medicine is very simple. That tenet states that if a treatment or therapy works, a scientific study will be able to prove its efficacy. As I mentioned in my previous post on homeopathy and herbal remedies, such studies generally are remarkably simple to perform. If there is no scientific study to support the efficacy of a treatment or remedy, the treatment or remedy may be nothing more than modern day snake oil.
So if I say that pets are good for human health, am I a modern day snake oil peddler? Definitely not. The paper, titled “The Healing Power of the Human-Animal Connection” is a review of scientific studies that document the effects of animal-assisted therapy and animal companions on humans. These studies show statistically significant health benefits in many situations.
Here are just a few of the findings that are summarized in the paper.
Among human cardiac patients, having a pet is correlated with increased likelihood of one-year survival.
Interacting with pets helps improve blood flow patterns in humans with heart failure.
Pet visits in a hospital setting cause patients to report less pain.
Hospitalized children report that animal-assisted therapy motivates them to get better.
Patients are not the only people to benefit from the presence of animals in the hospital. Here is a quote from the paper.
Such positive perceptions were not limited to patients and families. Nurses believed the presence of animals made the work environment happier and more interesting, with no negative impact on space or work flow.
The paper also points out that having a pet may make it less likely that a person will end up in the hospital in the first place.
Research at the University of Pennsylvania Veterinary Hospital showed that people who own companion animals report a highly significant reduction in minor health problems and significant improvements in psychological well-being in the first month after acquiring an animal. Households with dogs also showed an increase of 400% to 500% in walking.
In my opinion, the final sentence of the paper paraphrases the findings in a wonderful (although not succinct) way.
[Animal-assisted therapy] can promote healing through intentionality, personal wholeness, relationships between patients, animals and interdisciplinary staff, and environmental spaces that are truly transformational for both patients and staff.
For reference, the paper discussed in this post is Halm, Am J Crit Care. 2008; 17: 373-376
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07/09/08
 I love to write about the health benefits that people derive from their pets. Therefore, even though this topic may be a bit of a stretch, I’m making a prediction. Here it is: future studies will show that pets help to prevent memory loss and dementia in elderly people.
This prediction is based on two papers that appear in the July, 2008 American Journal of Public Health. The papers assess the effects of social integration and social networks on memory function, cognitive function, and dementia in humans.
Here is a quote from the first article.
Conclusions. Our study provides evidence that social integration delays memory loss among elderly Americans. (Am J Public Health. 2008;98: 1215-1220)
And here are the conclusions of the second article.
Our findings suggest that larger social networks have a protective influence on cognitive function among elderly women. (Am J Public Health. 2008;98: 1221-1227.)
These studies show that an active social life and a robust social network help to prevent mental confusion and memory loss.
I confess that pets are not mentioned in the studies. But I doubt that anyone on Dogster or Catster would deny that pets are part of their social network. After all, Dogster and Catster are social networking sites based on pets.
So, I have made my prediction. I will be keeping an eye on the scientific journals to see if I am proven right.
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05/18/08
Emotional well-being and physical well-being are closely linked. This fact seems self-evident. It makes sense that sick people recover faster if they are happy, comfortable, and free of pain. However, anyone who has spent time in a hospital will probably agree that patients’ emotional well-being often takes a back seat to raw science.
Some members of the nursing profession are working to make hospitals more pleasant for patients. An article in the May, 2008 issue of American Nurse Today points out one way to enhance patients’ emotional well-being: pet therapy. (Hat tip to Denie for passing along the article, which is written for nurses.)
By providing the benefits of human-animal interactions, pet therapy can promote a patient’s health and recovery. And you can use this creative intervention for patients in almost any setting–even patients who don’t have pets.
The article makes several points. First, the authors state that people who are hospitalized often worry about pets who are at home without anyone to care for them. The authors suggest that nurses help to confirm that the pets are being responsibly cared for. This leads to decreased stress and improved clinical condition in hospitalized humans.
The authors also recommend that, if possible, sick people should be allowed to visit with their pets. And they point out that people who don’t have pets often benefit from time spent with specially trained and certified therapy animals.
Finally, regular readers of this blog know that I love to talk about the health benefits that humans derive from their pets. (For instance, see here, here and here.) Therefore, I found the following boxed text in the article to be completely irresistible.
How pets improve our health. The benefits of pet companionship and interactions include:
less stress
lower blood pressure
lower cholesterol levels
less cardiovascular disease
reduced sense of loneliness
increased socialization and reminiscences
increased sense of responsibility and alertness
increased physical activity
improved overall health, leading to fewer doctor appointments
increased fun!
The article discussed in this post was written by Charlotte McKenny, BSN, RN and Rebecca Johnson, PhD, RN, FAAN.
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05/06/08
Pets are good for people. I firmly believe that, and I have mentioned it repeatedly on this blog. People with dogs get more exercise, on average, than people who don’t have dogs. (The other day I saw a very elderly man walking his Jack Russell Terrier. Without the dog, I have a hunch that gentleman would rarely leave the house.) Pets provide companionship and a sense of well-being to the people with whom they live. Cats and dogs are used in hospitals and nursing homes to cheer and comfort patients–with remarkable success. They can be trained to assist people with vision impairment, Parkinson’s disease, hearing loss, and even diabetes.
Of course, most of us on Catster and Dogster will agree that pets are good for our health and well-being. And a growing amount of scientific evidence is proving that pets benefit us in ways that are not so self-evident.
A recent article published by the AFP (a French global news agency) states that children who live with dogs may get an immune system boost from the family pet.
Blood tests showed that, in households with dogs, children were less at risk from becoming sensitised to pollens and inhaled allergens–the triggers for asthma and wheezing, allergic rhinitis and eczema–than counterparts in dog-less homes.
Sadly, the article also contains some disappointing news.
Oddly, though, the benefit seen in the children’s antibodies did not show through in terms of symptoms, the study found. Children with a dog were as susceptible to asthma and the other problems as counterparts without the pets.
This statement should not be construed to imply that the children were not receiving a health benefit from their canine companions. The study provides potent evidence that a household pet can help to stimulate the development of early childhood immune systems.
As scientists and doctors love to say: more research is necessary.
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04/03/08
The March, 2008 issue of Diabetes Forecast, the healthy living magazine of the American Diabetes Association, contained an article (PDF format) describing yet another way in which pets are beneficial to the health of the people with whom they live.
From the article:
No one knows for sure how they do it, but a growing number of canine companions are helping people with diabetes avoid dangerous hypoglycemia.
Diabetes is a disease marked by abnormal blood sugar levels. Most of the time, diabetics suffer from levels that are too high. However, in some instances sudden drops in blood sugar can occur. This may lead to hypoglycemia, or dangerously low blood sugar levels. Extreme hypoglycemia can result in coma, seizures, or even death.
The article describes several instances in which dogs, cats, and even rabbits and birds have alerted their human companions that their blood sugar levels were too low. Many people credit their pets with saving their lives. In some cases, dogs are able to detect an impending drop in blood sugar even before it occurs.
Dogs now are being trained to assist diabetics, much like they aid people with vision or hearing deficits. Dogs4Diabetics, based in Concord, California, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to training dogs for this purpose.
Dogs are helpful for the prevention of diabetes (because they cause people to exercise more). And it turns out that for people who have diabetes, a pet can be a true lifesaver.
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02/01/08
Pets are good for people. This is obvious to anyone who has enjoyed the sense of well-being that comes from petting a dog or snuggling with a cat. Now, a growing body of research is scientifically demonstrating the health benefits of having pets in our lives.
Studies have shown that elderly people who have pets have increased life expectancies. Children who live with pets may be less likely to develop asthma as adults. Interacting with pets may reduce high blood pressure.
And a paper in the January, 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health reported the findings of a study that examined the relationship between having a dog and getting enough exercise. Here is a quote from the paper.
We examined the influence of dog ownership on physical activity [in a] survey of 1813 adults. [The] odds of achieving sufficient physical activity and walking were 57% to 77% higher among dog owners compared with those not owning dogs. Dog ownership was independently associated with physical activity and walking. Actively encouraging more dog walking may increase community physical activity levels. (Am J Public Health, 2008;98:66-69)
The authors of the study found that people who have dogs in their lives consistently get more exercise than people who do not. This is true even for people who walk their dog fewer than five times per week (although I strongly recommend walking your dog at least once daily).
The article also included the following quip.
If your dog is fat, you aren’t getting enough exercise — Anonymous
This study backs up a bit of wisdom I have heard on occasion: if you want an effective exercise device, do not buy a treadmill or an elliptical trainer. Adopt a dog!
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