Adopting a cat could help fight off depression and improve your heart's overall health
If someone has not yet been won over by their sympathy and beauty, here is a very good reason to adopt a cat --- according to a recent study, cats extend the lives of their owners. And not only.
This finding has been affirmed by the Iseni Foundation and the Centro Cuore Malpensa (Malpensa Heart Center), of the Institutes of Hospitalization and Care (Iseni Sanità Group).
As a matter of fact, these medical institutions were the creators - one year ago - of an adoption campaign to get a dog for cardiac patients, which has proven to increase the life expectancy of most patients and has, also, highlighted the same benefits in the case of cats - with even more positive effects.
via ilmessaggero.it
The main benefit that can be drawn from feline company concerns the sphere of stress-related disorders, depressive disorders, and anxiety syndrome.
Professor Andrea Macchi - director of the Centro Cuore Malpensa and of the Institutes of Hospitalization and Care of the Iseni Sanità Group of Lonate Pozzolo explains the mechanisms underlying this beneficial relationship: "Contact with cat hair produces oxytocin, the hormone of happiness and unlike dogs, a cat's difficulty in trusting and relying on a human being stimulates in the later self-control and prolonged engagement in their relationship with a young kitten.
In addition, contact with a cat's fur is also pleasant and relaxing. It also acts positively on the heart rate and blood pressure. The cat's purrs are an immediate confirmation of the attention paid to the animal and naturally relax the patient, which produces enormous benefits at the cardiovascular level, prolonging and improving human life."
The results of the study have therefore led to an initiative similar to that with dogs. As a matter of fact, protocols were established with local cat boarding kennels, that encourage patients suffering from cardiovascular diseases to adopt a cat. It is the cardiologists, at the Centro Cuore, themselves who will be the ones to explain the benefits to the patients, in a detailed scientific manner.
This is a solution that satisfies a double objective. First of all, it obviously extends the life expectancy of the patients, secondly, it gives a home to abandoned cats, who will have a family and will repay all the affection they receive by giving years of life to those who take care of them." says Andrea Macchi who, to be a good example, has immediately adopted a cat for his own household.
Needless to add that you do not have to suffer from specific pathologies to welcome a cat into your home and your cat will reward you with the aforementioned benefits - and with much more. ;)
