IS SLEEPING WITH PETS BAD FOR YOUR HEALTH?
I can only speak for myself. But has a person living with HIV diagnosed in '97, I can speak to the benefit of sleeping with my pets. I now have 4 mini-dachshunds that all sleep in my bed. The comfort and love they give me is immeasureable.
They are all current on their vaccines, are well cared for and groomed, mostly stay indoors and very clean. This article does a great disservice to people who take great care for their pets.
If I lived on a farm and my pets roamed the land freely then I would be wary of leting them sleep in my bed. But as I live in the suburbs, maintain my yard and and home, I have no apprehension about the sleeping arrangements I have in place for the past 15 years. BTW my T-cells have climbed from 12 to a present 900... the meds I take get the most credit ... but the emotional support I receive from my dogs cannot be under estimated.
Read the article CNN/A furry dilemma: Sleep with your pet, risk catching his bugs
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I think the article makes a distinction between a well-cared for clean house pet, and a pet that has less care and cleanliness in its life. When my daughter got a piercing which failed to heal properly, despite every effort, we finally determined, though microbiological testing, that she was picking up a bacteria from the cat who was sleeping under the covers with her.
Cats and dogs don't sanitize their paws. We don't wash their paws on a regular basis. So it is easy to see how bacteria picked up outside and around the house could be transferred to the bed and result in an infection. Conditions like ringworm are difficult to diagnose until well established and can be transferred easily to bedding. That shouldn't stop anyone from sleeping with their pet, but people need to be made aware and be more observant.
Read the article CNN/A furry dilemma: Sleep with your pet, risk catching his bugs
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Oh, puh-leeze, give me a break!! A man who had a hip replacement had his dog sleep UNDER THE COVERS with him and got sick when the dog licked his wound?
One word for that: DUH!!!! I had BOTH of my hips replaced this past year and although my pup generally sleeps at the foot of my bed (NOT under the covers) I had the good sense–as I think most people of normal intelligence would!–to NOT have him on the bed nor anywhere NEAR the surgical wounds during the recovery period.
The examples cited in this article are incredibly rare and the fact is that people with compromised immune systems have to avoid LOTS of different things, not just "not sleeping with pets". C'mon CNN–please don't give the paranoid anti-bacterial nuts any more fodder to base their craziness on.
Read the article CNN/A furry dilemma: Sleep with your pet, risk catching his bugs
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I like dogs, but I don't understand how anyone in their right mind can get the disgusting idea of letting a dog into the bed, let alone kissing it, or letting it lick your face.
Dogs use their tounges as toilet paper in the sense that they lick their puppies butts, lick anything that smells tasty regardless of whether it is on the ground or worse. Dogs also eat a certain amount of horse manure (excrement), or similar, if given the chance. Dogs don't brush their teeth, and their own sense of intimate hygiene consists of licking their own butts and genitals. I know exactly what I am talking about since I grew up with many dogs of various breeds who were well cared for.
Let's not kid ourselves here. We are not doing our dogs or ourselves any favors by pretending here. Let's love our dogs as the dogs they are, without getting confused and thinking they are furry humans!
Now, if you brush your dogs teeth morning and evening, never let your dog lick anything on the ground, always know exactly what it eats, and showers your dog daily and its butt after its "toilet", then good for you, and then you can disregard all of the above.
Read the article CNN/A furry dilemma: Sleep with your pet, risk catching his bugs
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My pets have slept with me for over 35 years and I have never gotten even a sniffle. However, when I taught college, almost half the students who came into class with a cold passed it on to me (even after I specifically told sick students to stay out of class for everyone's sake)!
I have four 100+ lbs dogs (1 Great Dane and 3 Labradors) and a single 16 lb cat (a big red and white tabby Maine Coon) that sleeps with me and my partner on a king size bed. It's crowded but it's never cold (in fact when we were faced with 8 days without heat after an ice storm, the dogs helped us survive the frigid nights by huddling with us and keeping us warm)! I hope I have a beloved dog or cat sleeping with me till I pass away..
Read the article TIME/Why you shouldn't snuggle with your pooch in bed
THE FASTER YOU WALK, THE LONGER YOU LIVE
This article does not surprise me.
We have a saying in TCM (Traditional Chinese Medicine):
????? – A person ages starting from his or her legs.
Legs are the furthest parts from our body. Any degenerative effects due to aging (inflammations, poor blood circulation, blood vessel hardening, etc, etc) are typically reflected on our legs first.
Read the article CNN/Walking may predict survival in seniors
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Another unnecessary study which demonstrates what we already know through commonsense.
The headline grabbed my attention - I walk faster than almost anyone I know. Alas, they're looking at the walking speed of 75-year-olds and how long they live past the age of 75. I'm not sure whether I should be happy that for once, the article (and study designers) actually points out that the correlation between X and Y is likely the result of a separate cause, rather than X causing Y. In other articles of this sort, a correlation - even one obviously explained away - is considered causation, and the article writer doesn't even bother to examine any of the possible confounding variables.
So walking speed in old age can be a measure of vitality. I suppose this can be of some medical use - but was there really a need for a study to figure this out? Are doctors going to start measuring the speed at which their older patients walk in order to determine if they are sickly - and need some hard numbers to help them determine how slow is too slow?
Read the article BOSTON GLOBE/Your walking speed may predict your lifespan
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Complete nonsense.
My grandmother is 90 years old, is in perfect health yet walks slowly and only for short periods of time. She has always been a not-in-a-hurry type of person. If anything her low-stress approach to life is what I attribute her well-being to.
Read the article USA TODAY/Study: walking speed appears to predict longevity in seniors
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I am not sure this study proves much of anything. You would need to do a long-term study starting with people earlier in their life and track their speeds and then their average life expectancy. It seems fairly obvious that people in better health on average walk faster, and although walking faster may lead to better health this study does not give real eveidence of that. Interesting hypothesis though a much better designed test needs to be done.
Read the article USA TODAY/Study: walking speed appears to predict longevity in seniors
READ MORE COMMENTS: DECEMBER 2010
