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A research team from the National Institute for Environmental Studies, the University of Tokyo, and other institutions released the results of a study that tracked 11,224 elderly residents of Tokyo aged 65 to 84 for seven and a half years. According to the study, people who currently own a dog had a 48% lower risk of developing dementia requiring long-term care compared to those who had never owned one, while former dog owners showed almost no clear difference. On 5ch, comments ranged from requests to compare against other pets like cats, to the observation that people with the financial and time resources to keep a dog may already be living healthier lifestyles to begin with, to opinions favoring the exercise benefits of daily walks.
The paper “Investigating the Potential Protective Effect of Dog Ownership on Incident Disabling Dementia and Its Cost-Effectiveness,” published by researchers affiliated with the National Institute for Environmental Studies, the University of Tokyo, and other institutions in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, investigates the effect of dog ownership on dementia risk among the elderly and its cost-effectiveness.
The study tracked 11,224 elderly residents of Tokyo aged 65 to 84 over seven and a half years. Of the participants, 963 (8.6%) were current dog owners, 2,539 (22.6%) were former dog owners, and 7,722 (68.8%) had never owned a dog. During the follow-up period, 1,989 people (17.7%) developed dementia requiring long-term care.
An analysis of dog ownership and dementia risk (using an instrumental variable approach) found that current dog owners had a 48% lower risk of developing dementia requiring care compared to non-owners. However, among former dog owners, there was almost no clear difference in dementia incidence.
Source: itmedia.co.jp / Original article here
What people said
your legs and your mind are bound to stay sharp.
you start worrying about what happens to the dog if you die first —
so you just can't bring yourself to get a pet.
I hear it can run into the millions of yen over a lifetime.
People say if you can't even afford that, you shouldn't own one in the first place…
But isn't this study just picking up that people living affluent lives also happen to eat better?
Depends on the breed — small dogs are a lot cheaper.
Move your mutt out of the way and let other pedestrians walk straight through.
comparing elderly Tokyoites who can afford to keep a dog
against those who can't,
writing up a paper on dementia risk
and researching its cost-effectiveness.
Lately, because of YouTube and social media, it feels like this 'you absolutely must do X' or 'doing X is just common sense' mindset keeps spreading.
Apparently even vets are struggling, since more people are pushing weird, half-baked knowledge onto dogs, cats, and their owners.
So that's how much they're squeezing out of dog owners!
but are birds no good?
Sparrows would be nice, but you can't keep them as pets,
so I just watch the ones that come to my garden.
They seem to like perilla (shiso) seeds lol
Ignored the hamsters, chuu~
In Tokyo, in cases like that, they apparently tell you to appoint a guardian for the dog or cat.
Probably just part of their fee-collecting business model.
Background and Key Points of This Discussion
This study, conducted by a team from the National Institute for Environmental Studies, the University of Tokyo, and other institutions, stands out for using an approach called “instrumental variable analysis” to cut down on confounding factors rather than relying on simple correlation. As pointed out in the thread, this is a topic prone to reverse-causality concerns — that people who can afford to keep a dog are already healthier and better off financially — and the research team appears to have designed the study with that issue in mind. Notably, current owners showed a 48% drop in risk while former owners showed almost no difference, a result that’s hard to explain by “wealthy people can afford dogs” alone, and instead suggests an ongoing habit, such as daily walks, may be driving the effect. The comment about “walking flushing out amyloid beta” is only a general hypothesis floating around online, and it’s worth noting — since it’s easy to misread — that this particular paper does not itself prove any brain mechanism. The study also estimated cost-effectiveness, finding that if the dog-ownership rate rose to 13.4%, the additional cost to society as a whole would reach roughly 4.63 trillion yen over four years — a reminder that the health benefits and the economic burden sit in tension with each other.
*This article is excerpted and summarized from the 5ch (Business News+) thread “[Society] Owning a Dog Cuts Dementia Risk by 48% — Survey of Over 10,000 Tokyo Residents.”
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