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Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study

OBJECTIVE: There has been increased interest in human-animal interactions and their possible effects on human health. Some of this research has focused on human physical activity levels, mediated through increased dog walking. Much of the reported research has been cross sectional, and very few epid...

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Autores principales: Torske, Magnhild Oust, Krokstad, Steinar, Stamatakis, Emmanuel, Bauman, Adrian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5491039/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28662069
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179832
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author Torske, Magnhild Oust
Krokstad, Steinar
Stamatakis, Emmanuel
Bauman, Adrian
author_facet Torske, Magnhild Oust
Krokstad, Steinar
Stamatakis, Emmanuel
Bauman, Adrian
author_sort Torske, Magnhild Oust
collection PubMed
description OBJECTIVE: There has been increased interest in human-animal interactions and their possible effects on human health. Some of this research has focused on human physical activity levels, mediated through increased dog walking. Much of the reported research has been cross sectional, and very few epidemiological studies have examined the association between dog ownership and mortality in populations. METHODS: We used data from the Norwegian county population-based Nord-Trøndelag HUNT Study (HUNT2, 1995–1997). Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to analyse the relationship between dog ownership and all-cause mortality. The median follow-up time was 18.5 years and the maximum follow-up time was 19.7 years. RESULTS: In this population, dog owners were no more physically active than non-dog owners, both groups reporting a total of just over 3 hours/week of light and vigorous activity. Dog owners (n = 25,031, with 1,587 deaths during follow-up; 504,017 person-years of time at risk) had virtually the same hazard of dying as non-dog owners (Hazard ratio 1.00, 95% CI 0.91–1.09). CONCLUSIONS: We found no evidence for an association between the presence of a dog in the household and all-cause mortality or physical activity levels in this Norwegian population. Further epidemiological research is needed to clarify this relationship, as methodological limitations and an active Norwegian population sample means that generalizable evidence is not yet clear on dog ownership and mortality.
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spelling pubmed-54910392017-07-18 Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study Torske, Magnhild Oust Krokstad, Steinar Stamatakis, Emmanuel Bauman, Adrian PLoS One Research Article OBJECTIVE: There has been increased interest in human-animal interactions and their possible effects on human health. Some of this research has focused on human physical activity levels, mediated through increased dog walking. Much of the reported research has been cross sectional, and very few epidemiological studies have examined the association between dog ownership and mortality in populations. METHODS: We used data from the Norwegian county population-based Nord-Trøndelag HUNT Study (HUNT2, 1995–1997). Cox proportional hazards models were fitted to analyse the relationship between dog ownership and all-cause mortality. The median follow-up time was 18.5 years and the maximum follow-up time was 19.7 years. RESULTS: In this population, dog owners were no more physically active than non-dog owners, both groups reporting a total of just over 3 hours/week of light and vigorous activity. Dog owners (n = 25,031, with 1,587 deaths during follow-up; 504,017 person-years of time at risk) had virtually the same hazard of dying as non-dog owners (Hazard ratio 1.00, 95% CI 0.91–1.09). CONCLUSIONS: We found no evidence for an association between the presence of a dog in the household and all-cause mortality or physical activity levels in this Norwegian population. Further epidemiological research is needed to clarify this relationship, as methodological limitations and an active Norwegian population sample means that generalizable evidence is not yet clear on dog ownership and mortality. Public Library of Science 2017-06-29 /pmc/articles/PMC5491039/ /pubmed/28662069 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179832 Text en © 2017 Torske et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Torske, Magnhild Oust
Krokstad, Steinar
Stamatakis, Emmanuel
Bauman, Adrian
Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study
title Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study
title_full Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study
title_fullStr Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study
title_full_unstemmed Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study
title_short Dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in Norway: The HUNT study
title_sort dog ownership and all-cause mortality in a population cohort in norway: the hunt study
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5491039/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28662069
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0179832
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