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Cat Ownership Not Linked to Mental Health Problems
“The message for cat owners is clear: there is no evidence that cats pose a risk to children’s mental health,” says lead author Dr Francesca Solmi (UCL Psychiatry). “In our study, initial unadjusted analyses suggested a small link between cat ownership and psychotic symptoms at age 13, but this turned out to be due to other factors. Once we controlled for factors such as household over-crowding and socioeconomic status, the data showed that cats were not to blame. Previous studies reporting links between cat ownership and psychosis simply failed to adequately control for other possible explanations.”
Credit: UCL
The new study was significantly more reliable than previous research in this area since the team looked at families who were followed up regularly for almost 20 years. This is much more reliable than methods used in previous studies, which asked people with and without mental health problems to remember details about their childhood. Such accounts are more vulnerable to errors in recall which can lead to spurious findings.
Previous studies were also relatively small and had significant gaps in the data, whereas the new study looked at a large population and was able to account for missing data. The new study was not able to measure T. Gondii exposure directly, but the results suggest that if the parasite does cause psychiatric problems then cat ownership does not significantly increase exposure.
6 paintings of cats by Louis Wain with an increasing degree of abstractedness, attributed by some to his suffering from schizophrenia
“Our study suggests that cat ownership during pregnancy or in early childhood does not pose a direct risk for later psychotic symptoms,” explains senior author Dr James Kirkbride (UCL Psychiatry). “However, there is good evidence that T. Gondii exposure during pregnancy can lead to serious birth defects and other health problems in children. As such, we recommend that pregnant women should continue to follow advice not to handle soiled cat litter in case it contains T. Gondii.”
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This is an absurd and pointless study.
If anything they should have studied kids that grow up with dog owners.
Dog owners , in general, tend to be obsessed with their mangy mutts to the point of not caring if they keep the neighbors awake at night by leaving the stupid creature outside to entertain the neighborhood by howling at anything that moves.
Dog owners will buy a breed that they know is dangerous, then wonder why their kid gets mauled by it, then still defend the breed saying one “bad dog” doesn’t mean all of them are.
When people come to their house they don’t have the courtesy to put the dogs up so that people aren’t exposed to the smelly things, or worse yet victims of being jumped on or bitten.
And of course there are the fools who think because they live in the country they can let their dog run loose and then don’t undestand why it comes running home with a bullet in its’ ass because it because someone elses nuisance by being on their property or running the fat off of farmers cattle.
Or who don’t quite get it when they let the damn thing run loose and can’t figure out why it didn’t come home, when in reality it didn’t come home because some farmer is a good shot.
Cats are pretty self sufficient, and other than those who live in neighborhoods who let their cats roam free, cat owners are quite respectful of others. Cats don’t bark at 3 am and they shit in the box.
They tend to not be a pain in the ass when company comes.
And a cat is not strong enough and unless very diseased not aggressive enough to attack people.
I grew up with a dog, so I am not opposed to dogs, but in my house a dog was taken care of and not allowed to be a pain in the ass.
But my experience is that most dog owners are a bit loony.