A ten-year study has concluded that people who own a cat appear to be less likely to have a heart attack.
Researchers at the University of Minnesota carried out a study involving more than 4,000 people and found that owning a cat typically reduces a person's heart attack risk by nearly one third.
The findings, which were presented at the American Stroke Association's International Stroke Conference in New Orleans, are likely to be linked to stress relief, according to Dr Adnan Qureshi, executive director of the university's Stroke Institute and senior author of the study.
The expert said: "For years we have known that psychological stress and anxiety are related to cardiovascular events, particularly heart attacks," the US News & World Report reveals.
He suggested that the research "opens a whole new avenue of intervention that we hadn't looked at before, one that can be made at the public level".
A ten-year study has concluded that people who own a cat appear to be less likely to have a heart attack.
