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Cat Ownership Correlated With Heart Health

Posted by kdawson on from the correlation-is-not-causality dept.

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..."

4 of 406 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Global Warming Correlated with Pirate Number by Mutant321 · · Score: 5, Informative

    The study doesn't make any assertions about a mechanism that might cause cats to have a direct influence on human health. It merely points out that there is a statistically significant correlation. This could be a bizarre coincidence, or it might be something that we had no idea about before. Either way, it's warrants further investigation.

  2. Not necessarily pseudo-science by mysticgoat · · Score: 3, Informative

    Correlation does not mean causation.

    Right.

    Yet in TFA's case, there were also these statements:

    1. The stress-cardiovascular disease link is well-documented in scientific literature, and the affection and pleasure pets give humans is a known stress-buster.

    2. "We certainly expected an effect, because we thought that there was a biologically plausible mechanism at work. But the magnitude of the effect was hard to predict."

    3. She pointed to multiple studies that have found that animal companions "have a calming effect in regard to mental stressors."

    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.

  3. Except you're completely wrong by keineobachtubersie · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  4. not in China by peter303 · · Score: 3, Informative

    Cat cleanup before Olympics. Dont click if you love cats.