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Cat Ownership Correlated With Heart Health
Ant tips us to a story making the rounds lately, based on reporting a couple of weeks old, that owning a cat could cut your heart attack risk by one third. No such effect was seen from dog ownership, but the researchers say that could be because there weren't enough dog owners in the study population to provide meaningful statistics. The study: "...analyzed data on 4,435 Americans, aged 30 to 75, who took part in the federal government's second National Health and Nutrition Examination Study, which ran from 1976-1980. According to the data in the survey, 2,435 of the participants either owned a cat or had owned a cat in the past, while the remaining 2,000 had never done so. [The] team then tracked rates of death from all causes, including heart and stroke. Cat owners 'appeared to have a lower rate of dying from heart attacks' over 10 years of follow-up compared to feline-free folk..."
Well... it's something new I guess....
(awaits inevitable corrections)
Obviously, they died of furball before they were old enough to have a heart attack.
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I'm in ur aortas, reducing your stress
K thnx bai
http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/
Pussy is actually good for you, while having a bitch in your life makes no noticible improvements.
See also: FSM's Open Letter To Kansas School Board
They obviously have never seen our cats. Stress reducers? I don't think so.
Yet Another Web Site
Even in BBQ sauce they still give me the hives.
Anyone see that joke/story that shows speaking English is what kills you early? I think the causation link is a bit weak, even if they can't find define it so well here. Apparently having dogs doesn't have the same effect. Cats (well all animals) are known to carry certain virus types and germs. I'm thinking that is the real thing at issue here. I didn't see if kissing the cat had anything to do with the results either. There are so many things that could fall into play here. I hope they figure out how to bottle whatever it is, free or cheaply as owning a cat.
Better yet, I hope they figure out that cat's kill off something that otherwise leads to heart attack risks and that leads to even better preventative medicines. Meanwhile, I've got two cats and three dogs so I'm not sure where that leaves me for risk?
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
Does this mean that I can use my health insurance to pay for cat food?
....would seriously shorten the cat's life not to mention my allergies would kill me. Probably be a tossup as to who died first.
"TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
you can not has cheezburger.
Anyone who owns a cat has had the groggy middle of the night lights-off walk to the kitchen to get a drink, only to step on their cat's tail and get that nice shot of a adrenaline pumping through their arteries. Maybe it strengthens their heart, or trains their reactions to not get so damned surprised by things that their heart could stop.
Then again if things like this happen often enough to have effect, maybe they just shouldn't have a cat :)
The story is about a common kind of mistake that shows how important it is to understand the scientific method. Someone does a study and finds that there is a statistical correlation between one phenomenon and another. Then there is a claim that one of the phenomena is the cause of the other. Actually, however, they can both be related to something else that is not understood.
Single people die earlier than married people. The reason does not appear to be that marriage prolongs life. Apparently those who have no strong ties to another person when they are 50 or older are likely to be alone because of some huge stress in their lives. It is the stress that kills, not being unmarried.
...those who have cats arguably are NOT allergic to cat fur. So perhaps the same population is less likely to suffer from some form of heart disease.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
I like cats, and my family has had pet cats in the past, but I just can't give this "survey" very much legitimacy.
I could find a similar "survey audience" of beer drinkers, sex addicts, computer geeks (never mind, I'm already here!), root canal patients, or ANY group, and come up with whatever "favorable result" I want.
Just my opinion and observation, but it seems to me more like an agenda piece than an honest scientific exercise.
The problem with socialism is that they always run out of other people's money. - Margaret Thatcher
I'm using a speech synthesizer here; isn't that what the article is saying:
Cats are intelligent, interesting beings and they make you feel good. Dogs are dumb, slobbering beasts that make you take them outside to take a shit. I find on the surface that this makes complete and total intuitive sense.
Cats Rock
Dogs Suck
I don't remember the exact words. If anyone remembers better, please post.
Catbert, evil director of human resources.
Catbert: Did you know that petting a cat results in lower blood pressure?
(employee begins to rub catbert's tummy)
Catbert: HA HA, IT'S A HEALTH BENEFIT! NOW I WILL CUT DOWN EVERYONE'S SALARY!!!
Open Source Java Web Forum with LDAP authentication
Maybe it's just me, but these "Study finds x could decrease your risk of y by z%" news stories seem to be getting a little out of hand. "The team tracked the death rates for all causes and (surprise!) found some correlation in the statistics". What's next? Study finds people who paint their walls white decrease their risk of brain cancer by 20%? Seems like they'll publish anything just to publish something.
I mean, if this is all it takes to have a career in research then maybe I picked the wrong field. I'd be happy to run some statistics through a data miner for a university salery and grant money.
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
... reduce the risk of heart disease. Especially if you take your dog on five-mile walks each day (and yes, that means that you walk/bike too).
This is exactly what I was thinking... too bad I am out of mod points.
Does this include looking at hundreds of Lolcat pictures a day?
Hey! Look a Distraction!
I bet all the money in my pocket (admittedly not a lot) that this finding is a result of an overzealous data analysis.
The basic idea behind using statistical methods to test hypotheses is to compute the chance that the resulting data is oriented the way is is by coincidence. If this chance is exceedingly small, the variance in the data can't be explained by coincidence and must be due to some systematic effect. Depending on the type of research, probabilities between 5% and .01% are considered low and statistically significant. So basically, a hypothesis is accepted if the chance that it's false (this type of error is called a Type 1 error) is pretty small.
However, thanks to the advent of statistical data packages like SPSS, it's easy to check large numbers of variables. If there are tens or even hundreds of dependent variables in a study, all of these can be checked against the dependent variable (in this case, incidence of heart disease) with the push of the button. But the chance that at least one of these checks yields a false positive is pretty large. If the tests are performed at a 1% significance level for 50 variables, the chance is about 40%!
Unfortunately, there is no link to the actual paper. But if pet ownership is one of the variables included, chances are there were many variables that were included in the study.
All you guys with cats! YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF PU...*gasp*(grabs chest)...(THUMP)...
I want my! I want my! I want my Eee PC!
And some of us cat owners want everybody to live longer, so we keep our felines safely inside. If they really are "shitting in other peoples gardens", can't you call your local animal control or grab them and find their owner's info on a collar or something? I'm betting the misguided sense that the cats are somehow missing something by being kept inside would fade away pretty quickly after that.
Since this was only a correlational study and no experiment, we don't know anything about the direction of causality. maybe the genes for liking cats and having a healthy heart are coupled. or not dying of a heart attack makes you like cats. or whatever. cats rule.
Cats are notorious as reservoirs of Toxoplasma gondii, a parasitic protozoa that infects an estimated one-third of the world's population. This parasite causes behaviorial changes in rats that are infected, damping their fear response to the odor of cats, making Toxoplasma less a parasite for the cat and more of a synergist. In humans, Toxoplasma are thought to influence behavior enough that varying infection rates between cultures is thought to explain cultural differences of character. Perhaps they also have a beneficial side-effect on cardiovascular health, explaining the correlation between cat ownership and this observation?
Gentlemen, start your Correlation != Causality engines!
This is a perfect example of Slashdot. The top story is about how owning a cat lowers your risk of a heart attack and stroke, with a comment that correlation does not imply causation, and three stories down is a piece about bad science journalism. =-)
I wonder if cats have a reduced risk of heart disease from owning humans?
I'm much more relaxed (less stressed with lower blood pressure) since I got a kitty kat. Having a cat simply puts things in perspective sometimes, and the contact and love you get from them is wonderful. And they are hilarious!
It's not necessarily a direct link to longer life, but most things aren't. Lead a relaxed loving life and at least you'll have enjoyed it, even if you do cark it early and your cat can't save you.
Correlation != Causation. See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation
Perhaps people who choose to own cats are the same kind of people who opt for other less stressful things in their life?
You mean Guardianship. Humans need to discard the notion that "animals" are nothing more than property. You don't own an animal anymore than you would own your children. They have personalities, wants and needs just like us humans. I have three cats, they are family members, not some inanimate objects that act like they're alive.
"I bow to no man" - Riddick
http://youtube.com/watch?v=w0ffwDYo00Q
http://youtube.com/watch?v=4rb8aOzy9t4
Cat's reduce stress, sleep time, and number of garden gnomes.
And they increase headaches and broken glass.
but how many babies do they kill by shitting in other peoples gardens
None, or nearly none.
You could, you know, teach your children not to eat cat shit. Or you could just let them develop an immune system. It's not my fault that you're a helicopter parent who brought your child up in an oversterilised environment so now they have to live in a plastic bubble.
When I found out that my fiancee was cheating on me, and decided to break our engagement, the cat sensed it. She has increased her cuteness level by 100% and when I couldn't sleep at night, the cat cuddled up to me and started purring. And when my ex-fiancee tried to pet her, she clawed at her and ran away. Needless to say, that made me feel extremely good.
That's good to hear, especially in the face of this tragedy: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=528694&in_page_id=1811 "The situation is very bad now," said Ms Hu. "When women get pregnant, the doctor will ask them if they have a cat in the house. If they reply Yes, they tell them, 'You must get rid of it, it will be bad for the baby'."
OMGawd, that's devastating.
"The following 5000 families who did not currently have a pet were given a cat. How many of them had heart attacks compared to the control sample?"
Then you can make a Reality Show out of it.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
it's not the children eating cat shit it's pregnant mothers getting it on their hands which is the problem
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
I don't think you're familiar with the term "cogenital toxoplasmosis".
It's not my fault that you're a helicopter parent who brought your child up in an oversterilised environment so now they have to live in a plastic bubble.
But thanks for showing that you're totally clueless. Now go and educate yourself, unless you want to embarass yourself in the future.
This is just another example of bad science. Someone either wanted these results and found them by either manufacturing them or ignoring data that did not correlate with the "expected" findings. At best they jumped to a conclusion while ignoring the actual cause of the effect, if there was one. Most likely they had a statistical blip due to the small group they sampled. Repeated studies with larger sample groups with control groups looking at non-cat owners and dog owners would probably show this is nonsense.
Sounds like bad science to me.
The title is right, cat ownership is correlated with the lower heart attack rate in this study. So far so good. But the text inside states "that owning a cat could cut your heart attack risk by one third". Please, Slashdotters are better than this. This sentence implies that ownership causes the lower heart attack rate. This is NOT established. Some of the worst statistics occur in medical studies. If we take a group of 10,000 people and test them for 100 different characteristics, there is very likely to be two characteristics that correlate with 99% certainty. DUH!! That doesn't mean one implies the other. They may both be caused by a third factor, like bad teeth don't cause liver damage, but there are high rates of both in poor people. Or they could be randomly correlated in this test population, but will not show similar correlation in a different study.
Besides, as one of the posters to my journal already noted, cats age people like people age wine and cheese.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Wasn't someplace saying the exact opposite about a year ago? (dogs have more benefit than cats)
/.
I don't know where the article is, but I swear I remember it, maybe even posted here on
Given a choice between an early death or living with a cat, I'll take death.
It needs more blood, though.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
I don't know if it's a natural side effect of getting older but this is yet another 'discovery' that I remember reading about years ago. It's getting quite scary how often there seem to be reports of amazing new discoveries which are actually quite well known and understood things but apparantly forgotten by some.
I want a list of atrocities done in your name - Recoil
This is especially true about "life style" indicators. People owning cats are likely to have other life-style factors in common, some of which will affect health.
I know that pregnancy can cause some weird dietary desires, but c'mon!
Also haven't these people heard of washing your hands after doing something dirty?
its been said before, but correlation does not equal causation.
plus, how did they measure these things?
for example, I have been measuring and recording the daily temperature every day this year, starting in August and ending in January. My stats so far show that the temperature of the Earth is cooling quite rapidly. so nuts to this whole global warming thing!
see how easy stats can be manipulated?
i think they should expand on this research.
Is it the benefit unique to cats?
perhaps it is a beneficial bacteria, rather than the stress relief?
Perhaps eating one cat per week is more beneficial than owning one?
this study begs the question....if owning a cat reduced your risk of heart attack by 30%, are crazy cat women fully immune to heart attacks? come to think about it, I have never once heard of a crazy cat woman having a heart attack!
-I only code in BASIC.-
as such they are lesser beings that are suitable for food and pets. it is entirely reasonable to kill them for food and speak of them as property. no one should be cruel to them simply because cruelty to animals is a preface to cruelty to other human beings
to think of animals as equal to people, such as the woman i walked by in manhattam wearing the "animals are people too!" t shirt, or to think of animals as superior to people (more noble, because they don't commit various crimes you see somepeople engaged in), is an error in your ability to see a proper persepctive on the world
we humans matter more than animals. we just do. the moral basis for this is simply that we can do more, we are more powerful, due to our brains and our ability you communicate dense meaning. this is a burden we must carry, and one of our responsilibities is that we make sure the planet and the animals in our care are not treated cruelty or abused
but in no way does that equate to animals deserving anything of equal consideration or import as a human being
animals are property. nothing wrong with that concept at all
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Given a choice between an early death and living with you, I'd take death. Coincidence?
> And unlike drugs or surgery, pet ownership "doesn't appear to have any risks to it," he added.
Cats actually are common vectors of at least two intracellular zoonotic pathogens: Toxoplasma gondii and Bartonella clarridgeiae.
They're only considered dangerous for immunosuppressed or otherwise weakened people. Though I do know of a fellow Slashdotter who was under the weather for 3 months with Cat scratch fever.
This would explain the statistically high number of old ladies with numerous cats..... it's a feline cabal designed to keep grannies alive perpetually, for the betterment of society! Feline society, that is!
;-)
After all, who else feeds kitties all the time, but old grannies?
"Kinky sex involves the use of duck feathers. Perverted sex involves the whole duck." - Lewis Grizzard
Everyone's assuming that the effect - if there is one at all - is related to stress reduction, and that may well be the case. Another possibility: Could there be some cardioprotective effect from chronic toxoplasmosis infections?
Toxoplasma gondii is a parasite spread mainly through cats, and a significant proportion of long-term cat owners have it. Among its stranger symptoms is an effect on the brain that makes the host want to take care of more cats (e.g., the "cat lady" syndrome). Infected rodents are affected that way, too; they tend to lose their fear of cats specifically. It's not such a stretch to suppose there might be something cardioprotective going on, either directly or indirectly through the stress response.
no, i'm not joking
however, cat poop drink is very expensive
no, i'm not joking
well, not really a cat, a civet cat. hmmm. the same civet cat that gave us SARS
ok, stop it. the fringe information overload and my hypochondria is giving me a headache
i have a headache! that damned cat!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Dogs have owners, cats have staff...
Which only is really an issue for some high risk pregnancies or for exposure in the first week or so of pregnancy.
So yeah, there is a small chance it may make you give birth to a horribly deformed quasi-human, but really no more than other environmental factors like pollution or pharmaceuticals in the water supply.
And only about 50% of cats carry toxoplasmosis to begin with.
You say you want a revolution....
Correlation does not mean causation.
Right.
Yet in TFA's case, there were also these statements:
So after RTFA, there is ample cause to believe that the statistics were analyzed within the context of a hypothesis that the reporter did not explicitly state.
Finding a strong correlation that must exist if the hypothesis is true generally increases confidence in the hypothesis.
Why wasn't the hypothesis reported in the story? More than likely, because it was framed as a null hypothesis, and those can be hard to dummy down to the general public's limited understanding of the scientific method— at least within the framework of articles like TFA. These are written to report newsworthy events, not to teach high school science.
Do the math! With three cats, you're guaranteed not to have a heart attack!
"Apparently having dogs doesn't have the same effect. "
It has been long established that dog ownership improves long term health outcomes.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3035327
http://www.naturalnews.com/021483.html
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/33677.php
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/features/health-benefits-of-pets
...because I am allergic to cats, so we can't own one. I'd love to have one, but the resulting swelling of my eyes, sneezing, and congestion simply isn't worth the extra time I may gain....
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Cougars rule and Dawgs drool.
So thats's why all those crazy, lonely women live so long.
...Pirates reduce global warming.
Legally they are owned property. You can spout animal rights rhetoric all you want. They are animals, not people. They are property. Do they have the 'right' to be treated humanely and not be abused? Damn straight. Are they our equals in the eyes of the law? No, nor should they be.
Disclaimer= I *own* and have *owned* numerous pets. They've all been treated very well, loved and cared for and fed. They have also all been my *property*.
... that this is a classic case of "cum hoc, ergo propter hoc". This is wrong, we at /. know that. So let me try and explain what is happening here...
It may be that people who own cats (and take care of them, the others die of toxoplasmosis anyway) have a certain socioeconomic status that enables them to do so. A cat costs approx $1 a day. This group of people ("Caring Cat Owners") therefore is more likely to take better care of their own bodies, have a more nutritious diet and so on, therefore living healthier lives...
OMG I sound like Levitt.
Cya around, Cat is mewing hungrily.
Nobody writes jokes in base 13. - DNA
He/she already puts up with a lot as it is. Living with you. Allowing you to feed him/her. And generally having to go to the trouble of marking everything in his/her home as his/her territory. If you croak, they've just wasted lots of hard work.
God help you then!
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
"The story is about a common kind of mistake that shows how important it is to understand the scientific method. Someone does a study and finds that there is a statistical correlation between one phenomenon and another. Then there is a claim that one of the phenomena is the cause of the other. Actually, however, they can both be related to something else that is not understood."
It's not a mistake at all, and your example is terrible.
First, what you're talking about is called a Confounding Variable http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confounding_variable
Second, you're making the typical mistake of assuming that because confounding variables are sometimes present that they are ALWAYS present, or not controlled for. Do you know what confounding variables were controlled for in this study before you make the assumptions you have? No you do not.
Third, that ridiculous "correlation does not equal causation" mantra that is so often tossed about is designed like so many other easily remembered but relatively useless memes. It's not a scientific principle, it's a caution, nothing more.
The fact is, most of the time, correlation has some effect on causation. If nothing else, it indicates a relationship worth examining.
"Apparently those who have no strong ties to another person..."
This makes me ask, why denounce his study then do exactly what you denounced it for?
I can't tell you how tired I am of people getting modded insightful for misunderstanding then regurgitating something that most people who discuss this subject should understand at a base level.
There's nothing remotely insightful about restating "correlation does not equal causation".
They purr when they are happy and they purr when in distress. It helps in healing, even broken bones mend faster when a cat purrs. There are tons of studies to back up that rather obvious claim, but there is some speculation that a cat's purr can speed healing in others as well. Perhaps why a healthy cat will lie next to a sick one and purr? Perhaps why cat owners have healthier hearts?
Every species of cat purrs, both large and small. No other animal on earth purrs.
"It is nice to know that the computer understands the problem. But I would like to understand it too." --Eugene Wigner
Yay! Someone understands science and statistical inference better than the average Slashdotter.
In my case it would increase my risk
Incase you're in to such mindless headlines:
- Make your kids listen to Mozart. They will get better grades.
- Don't live in the slums, you're more likely to get schizophrenic if you do.
- Get more money. The richer you are, the smarter you are.
- Get straight black hair, a yellowish complexion, change your name into Li, and you'll have better math grades.
And so on...Be kind and the kindness will pay you back
After reading this news to my (Siamese) cat, I'm going to report that he was severely unimpressed.
That's what people my age (mid 20s) are doing instead of having kids like my parents did; they get a dog and they treat it like a kid. I don't know if it is some sort of self-filtering mechanism a la "if we can handle a dog, then maybe we can have a kid" or, more likely, they simply don't want kids at this stage. Dogs are cheaper and less annoying.
> because of some huge stress in their lives.
Stress-prone type-A personalities are more likely to own dogs than cats, since dogs have a loud and obnoxious personality such people can relate to. Quiet and calm type-B people tend to own cats, because cats are quiet, calm, and clean, just like their owners. From this it's obvious that cats would tend to correlate with less stress, leading to healthier and longer life. Causation is really the other way around.
Q: How do you make a cat sound like a dog?
A: Spray him with lighter fluid. One match and he goes WOOF.
Q: How do you make a dog sound like a cat?
A: Dip him in liquid nitrogen and cut him in a band-saw. He goes MMMMMEEEEOOOWWW.
(Funnier with good sound effects.)
I know this killed my karma, but I had to share these.
- I live the greatest adventure anyone could possibly desire. - Tosk the Hunted
I might get flamed for this but I think that Munroe captured these knods of studies perfectly in his comic XKCD. http://www.xkcd.com/111/
blog plug -> The Darker Side of Light
Dogs have similar effects on health.
http://www.americanheart.org/presenter.jhtml?identifier=3035327 [americanheart.org]
http://www.naturalnews.com/021483.html [naturalnews.com]
http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/33677.php [medicalnewstoday.com]
http://www.webmd.com/hypertension-high-blood-pressure/features/health-benefits-of-pets [webmd.com]
Please stop using studies like these to reinforce your prejudices.
Correlation doesn't equal causation.
It could simply be that most hard driving type A folks destined for heart attacks, have less interest in Cats. Giving them a Cat wouldn't lower their actual risk.
Cat ownership may have nothing to do with it. It just may be that calm easy going folks buy more cats, and hard drivers don't. In the absence of the cats their rate of heart attack may be unchanged, you would just need another mechanism to identify them.
"Cat owners "appeared to have a lower rate of dying from heart attacks" over 10 years of follow-up compared to feline-free folk, Qureshi said"
1) Did they have an overall lower rate of dying over that period?
2) What did they tend to die from instead then?
Most people eventually die.
I'd prefer a heart attack than a slow death from cancer, or being half dead for years from stroke.
3) Did they check for other differences/correlations?
e.g. infection by toxoplasma gondii?
"They have personalities, wants and needs just like us humans."
Look at that bolded part for why you're wrong.
And honestly, you're a nutjob.
And we understand that "correlation does not equal causation" is a caution given to ignorant students to prevent them from assuming causation in cases where it doesn't belong. It is not a hard anf fast rule, and should not be used to discuss subjects like this as it's too simplistic to be useful (unless you are a freshman science student).
In other words, it's a nice saying to help students remember to be diligent, but HAS NO BEARING WHATSOEVER on real research. Researchers make great efforts to deal with confounding variables because they know what they're doing. This stud did not indicate which confounding variables were controlled for, so your assumption about causality is impossible to support with the given evidence.
We also understand that very often, a correlation does in fact indicate some kind of causal relationship.
So, the fact that you don't know why it's a troll is exactly why it's troll, he has the same deficiency of understanding that you do.
One word: Toxoplasmosis.
I never use cat. I use less, awk, head, tail, grep and sometimes vim to discover the contents of my log files.
But now there's proof that cat can help my heart... !
Life would be easier if I had the source code.
May i point out that the reverse (causation implies correlation) DOES hold true, and that the whole 'it's just a correlation!' shouting doesn't actually prove whether the study is bogus or not? It still is an interesting data-point, and as a cat-surviver myself, i can only attest to many calming effect a cat, and to a lesser effect a dog might be having on their slave and master, correspondingly. I'm not saying that cats directly reduce the risk of a heart attack, but i think it's interesting that it might be a relatively strong factor playing into the combination of stuff you can do to increase your life expectancy. It might be something as simple as the happiness or the pride that a cat can couse when she decides to honor you with her presence, and starts to purr.
And besides - weren't there a couple of studies that showed that pets in hospital have benificial effects on the patients?
... cause intelligence reduction
Do you say "I have 3 kids" or "3 kids are living with me" ?
...
.. what's so politically incorrect about ... This is my cat? I'm his best friend too! He's not just "a cat" ..
I think, in current standards, "I have 3 kids" would sound better. Does that sound I own 3 kids or I got 3 kids from birth ?
"My cat" is not "My cat" because he is owned by me, nope, it's because he is guarded by me his entire life; he's my roommate and compagnion
So
In Dutch we call that "comma-n**ken"...
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
Does "Hello Kitty" count?
Everyone knows that you don't own a cat, the cat owns you. We don't even need "In Soviet Russia" on this one, it's pretty much universal.
Let's get this straight. Cats only condescendingly permits us to live in the same house with them. They own us. You die less from heart attacks because it's cheaper for them to keep you alive than to find another pet human.
$nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
Cat cleanup before Olympics. Dont click if you love cats.
Cleaning pooped and pissed carpet is guaranteed to be stressful.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Hillary Clinton's campaign commented that all the non-cat-owning freeriders must be taxed for what their lack of cat ownership costs society.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
People with allergies are more likely to die of heart attack.
I'm an orthopaedic surgeon, and would really, really really, like to see where that's been shown to be true. IF that's the case, then that would be worth billions of dollars per year. I'm surprised one of the drug, or implant companies hasn't come up with that yet.
I can see it now - break your femur, and just strap 4 cats to your leg with some stinky minnows and you're walking in a week.
..........FULL STOP.
Many cat owners are infected with a parasite called toxoplasmosis. When toxo gets into mice brains, it can affect their thinking, making them less afraid of cats.
Several studies are indicating a strong link to schizophrenia in humans with toxo.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no11/03-0143.htm
..........FULL STOP.
Cats often are infected with a parasite called toxoplasmosis, which exposure to, has been linked to schizophrenia in humans.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no11/03-0143.htm
..........FULL STOP.
I don't see any mistake in what I said.
And, it was only a Slashdot comment, not a full article on what I know about the subject. I was presenting a more plausible and well-respected theory.
It seemed to me that you were mostly interested in acting superior, not in merely adding to the discussion.
With their silly partial order relationships.
Your cognitive abilities are the comparison chosen by you. It is subjective. A lion would certainly deem you inferior because you can't take it down bare handed. Another human would deem you inferior because of your possessions (or lack of thereof).
(and come on, admit it, you weren't looking at the printed message in that woman's shirt :)
nod, with a meow, to this theory
Reduce, reuse, cycle
Call 911? Heck, my cats can do that and perform CPR while administering Last Rites, just in case.
Seriously...my theory is that cats help reduce vermin about the house, thus contributing to the health of their designated care-providers. (Heaven forfend that anyone should ever think he owns a cat.) My house used to be overrun with those huge cockroaches that they call "palmetto bugs" here in Texas. After I got the cats, no more roaches (but fat and happy cats). They go after anything that wiggles, scuttles, or flies around. (Though their success rate on flying prey leaves something to be desired. Hmm note to self: must look into breeding flying cats.)
The association between humans and cats has been a long and mutually beneficial one. The only major issue to trouble this partnership was the invention of doors by an unknown carpenter circa 3800 B.C. (oddly enough, the unlucky inventor suffered a fatal fall down a steep stairway soon after filing the patent). Ever since, cats have been sitting in front of doors and meowing. Most people think the cat wants out (or in), but not so: the cat is demanding that all doors everywhere be permanently removed. A closed door is an offense to all cat-kind.
Great men are almost always bad men--Lord Acton's Corollary
Any links showing connection between cat ownership and toxoplasmosis infection?
Additionally, humans are often infected with toxoplasmosis from eating raw or undercooked meat. This is in fact the primary way humans get infected--wikipedia mentions this as the main reason that up to 80% of people in france have come into contact with toxoplasmosis.
Look again you whiny little bitch then grow some thicker skin so you don't cry again when someone points out that you're a fucking idiot.
We have a report of a correlation between cat ownership and some measure of health.
Lets examine the possibilities...
a) Perhaps cat ownership causes people to have healthier hearts. Certainly this is the conclusion to which we are 'supposed to believe.'
b) Perhaps healthy hearts cause cat ownership. Counter-intuitive to say the least, but the statement that the two factors are correlated support this causal relationship just as strongly as option a).
c) Perhaps there is a latent factor that contributes to both cat ownership and healthy hearts. Do poor folks who do not have access to health care have fewer cats than wealthy folks? If so, cat ownership and health in general may be confounded.
d) Perhaps this phenomenon is observed completely by chance. Given the number of individuals, one might be doubtful, but I find it quite odd that they have sufficient cat owners to make this inference, but not enough dog owners. TFA: the numbers of dog owners in the study wasn't big enough to count statistically. Over half of the sample owned a cat, but not enough owned a dog to report the numbers... dubious.
I suspect that cats, dogs, healthy eating, frequent sex, and happiness in general are all positively correlated with healthier hearts. This report makes for great 'news', placating innumerate cat lovers, but contributes remarkably little to actually understanding the world.
I had 4 cats at one time, down to 2 now. Did my heart attack risk double? 72 more cats and I get my picture in the paper. :-)
I'm not a doctor, but I want to play a companion on TV.
since everything I turn around, my fucking dog is chewing something up and my blood pressure goes up!
Slashdot "libertarians": Small government for me, big government for those I disagree with. -1, I disagree with you
I'd say that the reason why people live longer is that cats are generally owned by those that can afford them. Better income would imply better quality of life. I'd be interested to know what the heart disease rate is for different income levels.
Owning a cat means you are more likely to punch out python.
Badgers are proven to purr.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
I have 2 cats. So does that mean I've cut my risk of heart-attack by 100% or does it just confirm that I'm still single?
In other news, scientists have discovered that shooting yourself in the face greatly reduces your risk of heart disease.
And unlike drugs or surgery, pet ownership "doesn't appear to have any risks to it," he added.
Tell that to my couches.
Cats own humans. Those aren't hairballs, those're ownership taxes imparted by The Council of Fluff.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Dogs were used in ancient times to assist in hunting
Cats were worshipped in ancient Egypt
Puteulanus fenestra mortis
Will Fido or Fluffy be in the running? I doubt it. Humans have given cannines a raw deal for hundreds of thousands of years. If they were capable of true mind, humans would never have survived past the hunter-gatherer stage. Felines have never been totally domesticated, which is why they can survive very well if they "escape" or are abandoned. Their relationship with humans is one of mutual convenience and they can leave pretty much any time they like. Being independent is not the same as being intelligent, however, as many "independent" humans illustrate daily. Cats are certainly high up the rankings in the animal world, but they're highly optimized predators, and that comes at a cost. In their case, they dedicate so much of their physical and mental resources to awareness, stealth, accuracy and dedication that they simply don't have a whole lot left for the pursuit of philosophy, the arts, knowledge and non-material purpose.
(However, precisely because research keeps moving the dividing lines, something appearing unlikely today doesn't mean it'll appear unlikely next year.)
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Heart Disease? Ha! I don't have to worry about such a trivial problem with that clowder of cats by my side; trixie, dixie , frixie; always raiding my fridge of those evil fatty foods! Oh Bless my furry friends! Always thinking of my health.
"I understood your point,"
No, you really didn't.
"you missed mine."
I don't CARE about your point, that's what you seem to be having a hard time getting.
Cats are smarter than dogs. I have proof.
Ever seen a team of Siberian sled cats?
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Wow! This thread really got crazy. There is no problem with my grandparent post, in spite of the complaints. Those who are feeling so negative are confusing "claiming causation" with proposing a theory. Anyone can propose a theory that fits the facts.
For those of you who are not intellectually inclined (I won't name names, but the numbers 7, 1, 8, 4, and 9 come to mind), a "urination competition" is simply another way to say "pissing contest". By the way, you win. I will stop trying to correct your accuracy, and just let you be stupid. Happy now? Good.
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It seems that remarks about eating cats or cat put-downs have more mod points. Let's do another correlation study here.
Ya know, I'm finding it difficult to believe you're not just trolling. My point was that cats (and indeed, most, if not all organisms) have defenses, and are therefore by definition not defenseless.
If you have a defense, but it's totally ineffective, can you still REALLY call it a defense? I didn't say cats can bite and scratch. What I said was that the fact that the cat can do that is completely irrelevent when a human wants to harm a cat. Would you argue a person's immune system is a defense against HIV?
As a matter of fact, no. I am not defenseless, merely threatened. As a matter of fact, depending on the level of skill of the gun's holder (and the circumstances wherein I could find myself staring at the wrong end of a weapon), a few moments later might find me holding the firearm, and them nursing a freshly broken wrist. Sorry, but the more you try to argue your (fallacious) point, and still insist on missing mine, the less I feel like I'm having an intelligent discussion, and the more I feel like we're just out in the sandlot having a urination competition.
Point taken. Lets suppose you're already tied up. That's my point, you're ignoring that the defense is 100% useless. I've never heard of anyone trying to harm a cat where the cat came out beating the human. At best, the cat can hope to run away. In the case of a house cat, that's not an option.. the cat has no way to exit the house without human intervention.
For those of you who are not intellectually inclined (I won't name names, but the numbers 7, 1, 8, 4, and 9 come to mind), a "urination competition" is simply another way to say "pissing contest". By the way, you win. I will stop trying to correct your accuracy, and just let you be stupid. Happy now? Good.
Sorry, you're the stupid one, and an ass. But please, feel free to tell me how a house cat can realistically defend itself against a human wishing to do it harm. Go ahead and tell me that it can scratch. Ya, no shit, but that won't stop the human from harming the cat, will it? Let me be as clear as I possibly can, because you're a nitpicking moron: CATS HAVE NO EFFECTIVE DEFENSE AGAINST A HUMAN.