Sixty seconds on . . . dogs and dementia

WoofDown boy, although I can understand your excitement. New research says a dog can reduce the risk of developing dementia in old age.Lassie?Any dog. Dog ownership has a suppressive effect on incident disabling dementia, according to the study published in Preventive Medicine Reports.1 The researchers claim this is the first time that scientists have established a clear link between owning a dog and the onset of dementia.What do the labs say?The scientists from the Tokyo Metropolitan Institute for Geriatrics and Gerontology spent four years monitoring 11 194 adults aged 64 to 84—around 10% of the older population of Ota City, Tokyo. They concluded that dog owners were 40% less likely to get dementia than those without. “Having a dog effectively requires people to get into the habit of physical activity and that makes it much more likely that they will then have interactions and socialise with other people,” Yu Taniguchi,…
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