Why are cat-owners healthier than other people?

This may sound a strange question, but there is a great deal of evidence to prove that cat-owning is good for your health. And there is some comfort for beleaguered pet-owners, often criticized today for 'messing up the environment with their animals', that the anti-pet lobby will die younger than they will. There are two reasons for this.

First, it is known that the friendly physical contact with cats actively reduces stress in their human companions. The relationship between human and cat is touching in both senses of the word. The cat rubs against its owner's body and the owner strokes and fondles the cat's fur. If such owners are wired up in the laboratory to test their physiological responses, it is found that their body systems become markedly calmer when they start stroking their cats. Their tension eases and their bodies relax. This form of feline therapy has been proved in practice in a number of acute cases where mental patients have improved amazingly after being allowed the company of pet cats.

We all feel somehow released by the simple, honest relationship with the cat. This is the second reason for the cat's beneficial impact on humans. It is not merely a matter of touch, important as that may be.

It is also a matter of psychological relationship which lacks the complexities, betrayals and contradictions of human relationships. We are all hurt by certain human relationships from time to time, some of us acutely, others more trivially. Those with severe mental scars may find it hard to trust again. For them, a bond with a cat can provide rewards so great that it may even give them back their faith in human relations, destroy their cynicism and their suspicion and heal their hidden scars. And a special study in the United States has recently revealed that, for those whose stress has led to heart trouble, the owning of a cat may literally make the difference between life and death, reducing blood pressure and calming the overworked heart.