(Part 1)
There are at least seven (7) health benefits of owning a dog.
Iris Tse, authory of 7 Surprising Health Benefits of Dog Ownership and MyHealthNewsDaily Contributor (live Science), notes, “ You may not think so when you get a heart-stopping veterinarian bill or when all your dog does is laze on the couch and watch TV with you but dog ownership actually can provide a variety of health benefits.
She adds: “Anecdotal and scientific evidence have shown that dog owners tend to be healthier than the average person.”
The seven (7) health benefits are:
1. Dogs can detect cancer
Two decades ago, there have been scientific reports of dogs sniffing out cancerous growths.
In a1989 case study in The Lancet, a patient said her dog constantly sniffed at a mole on her leg, and even tried to bite the lesion off. Because of this, she had the mole checked out and was told it was a malignant melanoma.
Some dogs can also detect bladder, lung, breast, ovarian and colon cancer.
Panda, a trained eight-year-old black Labrador, “correctly detected colorectal cancer in 33 out of 37 samples of people's breath and stool that scientists had collected,” Tse says.
In an article journal Gut published in 2012, Panda apparently detected an early-stage colorectal cancer.
“It's unclear whether such dogs are zeroing in on some unknown, tumor-related volatile compounds, or more conventional substances in body fluids associated with an increased risk of cancer, such as metabolites of cigarettes, the researchers said. However, in this experiment, Panda identified cancer patients even among body fluid samples from people with inflammation, a history of smoking, or other diseases, “ Tse says.
2. Dogs can keep you active
Dog owners who frequently walk their dogs or exercise with their dogs already know this.
Dogs often “beg” for walks or play time.
A 2010 study in the American Journal of Public Health showed that children with dogs did more moderate to vigorous physical activity than children with no dogs.
A 2006 study by Canadian researchers at the University of Victoria showed dog owners walked an average of 300 minutes per week, compared to non-dog owners who walked an average of 168 minutes every week.
In a 2008 study by the National Cancer Institute, dog owners walked 19 minutes more than those without a dog every week .
But Tse stresses that dog owners will enjoy the health benefit of dog ownership only if he/she is willing to walk their dogs.
3. Dogs can tell when you have low blood sugar
Tse says some trained dogs appear to be able to detect low blood sugar levels.
A 2000 article in the British Medical Journal reported that “more than one-third of dogs living with diabetic people have been reported to display behavioral changes when their owners' blood sugar drops, sometimes even before patients themselves were aware of it,” Tse says
“In two case studies cited by the paper, the dogs not only detected their owners' falling glucose levels, they even nudged their owners into eating,” she adds.
Tse says it is not yet known how the dogs did it, but “it's possible that they detected minute muscle tremors, or changes in the owners' scents.”
4. Dogs can reduce the risk of eczema reactions
Many parents are afraid to expose young children to dogs, thinking this could trigger allergy or eczema reactions.
But preliminary research showed that children who started mingling with dogs at infancy “were significantly less likely to develop eczema by age 4,” Tse says
A study, with 636 children as subjects and published in the Journal of Pediatrics in 2011, showed that the rate of eczema was lower among kids whose family had a dog.
“In fact, even for kids sensitive to dog allergens, having a dog did not increase their risk of developing eczema,” Tse says.
But, Tse warns, “before you rush out to get a dog for your kid, keep in mind that more research still needs to be done in this area. Previous research has shown that dogs can also increase the risk of asthma in some kids.”
(To be continued next week)
