University of Manchester: Pet Ownership & Cancer Research Poster

This assignment reviews an article from Psychology Today exploring the correlation between pet ownership and cancer in women. The research, funded by the Human-animal Bond Research Institute, investigates the impact of pet ownership on human health, revealing potential links between certain pets and cancer types. The study highlights that women with cats and birds may face an increased risk of lung cancer and overall cancer-related deaths, while dog ownership appears to offer protection. The assignment summarizes the study's findings, which also considers demographic factors like smoking, drinking, race, income, and exercise. The study used data from nationally representative cohorts. The article acknowledges the need for further research to understand the specific risk factors and the reasons for the gendered differences in cancer risk associated with different types of pets. Overall, the assignment provides a concise overview of the research and its conclusions, emphasizing the need for more in-depth investigation into this complex relationship. The conclusion is that women with birds and cats are prone to have cancer, whereas dog owners have no risk of health issues.

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THE STRANGE LINK BETWEEN PET OWNERSHIP AND CANCER IN
WOMEN
Summary
The main concept of this article is pet ownership and its impact on the human
health. The Pet Effect campaign was organized by the organization namely
Human-animal Bond Research Institute funded by different industries.
According to the scientific studies pets are good for the human health. On the
other hand, the PR departments of the corporate industry ignore the study of
pet-owners as more susceptible as a host of diseases. These diseases include
anxiety, insomnia, hypertension, migraine, gastric ulcer, obesity. Along with this,
researcher identified various aspects with the finding that there are several
connection with pets and different types of disease including Colorectal
cancers. To build this connection between Colorectal Cancer with pets was
documented in the Journal of Public Health (Psychology Today, 2020). The
demographic factors included in this research smoking, drinking, race, income,
and exercise. Along with this, the article mentioned the connection between pet
ownership and lung cancer. The graphical representation demonstrates the
hazard ratio in men and women.
On the other hand, the article presents another data to find the chances to
succumb from the disease of cancer within the male and female pet owners.
The results shows that almost 40% of the women pet owners have died from
cancer. However, there is a positive side that women living with dog are less
connected with relationship of cancer and deaths (Psychology Today, 2020).
The research can be summarized as women with cats and birds considerably
possess greater chances to have lung cancer including death in all forms of
cancer. Contradictorily, men with pets have no risk of death of cancer. Overall,
owning a dog irrespective of gender possess no risk of dying from any form of
cancer.
It is worth mentioning in this regard that, the researcher used only the data from
nationally cohort representatives. Depending on the research on the similar
topic by other researchers, it should be mentioned that pet owners are more at
a risk of dying from lymphoma, leukemia, lung cancer, and breast cancer
especially the women. Another group of researchers come with mixed result of
dying rate of pet owners. A study conducted during the year 2016, found little or
no relation with pet owners and chances of cancer within the women
(Psychology Today, 2020). There are several questions raised from the
conducted research. It includes the reason for understanding the risk factors of
cat and bird owners in spite of dog owners. On the other hand, what is the
reason that only the women owners are situated at greater risk than the male
owners. The researchers of this study also agreed with the fact that there are
no particular reason for these questions. However, they assumed that perhaps
the cat and birds owners may face the contact with carcinogenic chemicals
namely aflatoxins by the exposure of contaminated foods of pets and feces of
animals. The study is based on a disappointing topic of investigating a
connection between pets and diseases.
Conclusion
References
Psychology Today. (2020). The Strange Link Between Pet Ownership and
Cancer In Women. Retrieved 26 February 2020, from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/animals-and-us/201908/the-strange-
link-between-pet-ownership-and-cancer-in-women
Hence from the discussion, it can be concluded that, the women with birds and
cats as pets are prone to have risk of having cancer irrespective of the type. On
the other hand, owners of dogs are free of any type of health risks. According to
the psychological study, pets helps to reduces the mental health related issues
including anxiety, hypertension, irritation and other related issues. It is worth
mentioning in this regard that the male pet owners are free from this type of
claims of health risks related to pets.