By TATSUYUKI KOBORI/ Staff Writer
April 22, 2022 at 09:00 JST
A therapy dog visits a facility for elderly people in Kushiro, Hokkaido, in February 2020. (Asahi Shimbun file photo)
Dogs are often called man’s best friend.
Now, a study covering more than 10,000 elderly Tokyo residents found that owning a dog lowers the risk of loss of independence--requiring nursing care or dying--by about half.
The study by the National Institute for Environmental Studies and the Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology indicates that people walking with their dog and interacting with other dog owners are beneficial to maintaining good health.
“Our next step is to examine the economic impact of dog ownership, such as whether it can contribute to reining in social security costs,” said Yu Taniguchi, chief researcher at the National Institute for Environmental Studies in Tsukuba, Ibaraki Prefecture.
The research team asked more than 10,000 Tokyo residents ranging in age between 65 and 84 if they owned dogs or cats and whether they used nursing care services covered by a public insurance program.
The survey respondents were randomly selected from basic resident registers kept by local authorities.
Analyzing data on 11,233 individuals who did not require nursing care at the start of the study, the researchers found that the risk of loss of independence for dog owners was 0.54 times that of those who never kept a dog.
The risk for people who used to own a dog was also about 20 percent lower compared with those who never kept one.
The low risk for dog owners was statistically confirmed after adjustment for other risk factors, such as age, gender, chronic illness, drinking and smoking habits, income and number of people in each household.
The team’s findings were published in the Plos One scientific journal.
It was unclear whether owning a cat reduces the risk of an elderly owner’s loss of independence. But the researchers said cat ownership may also have health benefits, citing separate studies that indicate felines have a positive mental effect on owners.
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