Men’s Interests

Since I’m a big animal-lover and own several pets, I thought I’d show you the reason you should own a pet or two. See some of my pets here and here.

Pets can decrease your:

# Blood pressure
# Cholesterol levels
# Triglyceride levels
# Feelings of loneliness

Pets can increase your:

# Opportunities for exercise and outdoor activities
# Opportunities for socialization

from the CDC

# Pet owners have lower blood pressure. (Friedmann, 1983, Anderson 1992).
# Pet owners have lower triglyceride and cholesterol levels than non-owners (Anderson, 1992).
# Pet owners have fewer minor health problems (Friedmann, 1990, Serpel, 1990).
# Pet owners have better psychological well-being (Serpel, 1990).
# Having a pet may decrease heart attack mortality by 3%. This translates into 30,000 lives saved annually (Friedman, 1980).
# Children’s cognitive development can be enhanced by owning a pet. (Poresky, 1988).
# 70% of families surveyed reported an increase in family happiness and fun subsequent to pet acquisition. (Cain, 1985).
# Children owning pets are more involved in activities such as sports, hobbies, clubs or chores. (Melson, 1990).
# Children exposed to pets during the first year of life have a lower frequency of allergic rhintis and asthma. (Hesselmar, 1999).
# Children who own pets score significantly higher on empathy and prosocial orientation scales than non-owners. (Vidovic, 1999).

# The American Journal of Cardiology reported that male dog owners were significantly less likely to die within one year after a heart attack than those who did not own a dog.
# Friedmann E, Thomas S. Pet ownership, social support, and one-year survival after acute myocardial infarction in the Cardiac Arrhythmia Suppression Trial (CAST). The American Journal of Cardiology. 1995;76:1213-1217.
# Researchers in the UK reported in the January 1999 and January 2001 issues of Seizure on dogs they had trained that could detect seizures 15–45 minutes prior to the episode’s beginning.
# Brown SW, Strong V. The use of seizure-alert dogs. Seizure. 2001;10:39-41
# Strong V, Brown SW, Walker R. Seizure-alert dogs – fact or fiction? Seizure. 1999;8:62-65.
# A brief report in a 1989 issue of the Lancet describes how one dog discovered a cancerous skin tumor on her owner’s leg.
# Williams H, Pembroke A. Sniffer dogs in the melanoma clinic? Lancet. 1989;1(8640):734.

from the Delta Society

pets exoticpets health