Litter Box = Healthy Heart. Who Knew?
May 5, 2008 by Liberty Kontranowski
Filed under Animals, Easy Health Tips, Happy Living Tip, Heart Health, Your Mind
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Great news for kitty lovers: Turns out your feline friends do more than keep your toes warm at night – they help keep your heart healthy, too.
A recent study from the University of Minnesota found that owning a cat can slash your risk of dying from a heart attack by up to 40 percent. Evidently, having kitty around can help soothe away the harmful effects of stress and anxiety. Suddenly, dealing with the litter box doesn’t seem quite so vexing, now does it?
Of course, it’s best to keep exercising and eating right, but if it’s been one of “those days”, spend some extra time with your furry pal and make your heart (and your pet) happy.
I have a cat, so if it’s true, that’s awesome!
On the other hand, I suspect this is the sort of study that confuses correlation with causation. I’m guessing that the kind of people who own cats are (a) less likely to be ill already and (b) different in all kinds of other subtle ways from non-cat owners.
Alas, you can’t really do a study where you start with two large random samples of catless people, give half of them cats, and see what happens.
Some people can become ill from handling pet wastes, especially pregnant women. I use an automatic litter box to make it much easier to deal with. I have three cats so far and I am very happy and healthy.