Dog's mood may reflect owner's health
Man's
best friend may also give vital clues to its master's wellbeing!
Monitoring
the mood of a pet dog could provide an early warning sign that an elderly owner
is struggling to cope, a new report has claimed.
Researchers
at Newcastle University placed movement sensors on dogs to track their
behaviour and identified 17 distinct activities, including chewing, barking,
sitting and digging.
This
allowed them to map the normal behaviour of a healthy, happy dog, which means
any changes can be monitored and could indicate an issue with their owner.
The
team created a hi-tech, waterproof dog collar complete with accelerometer and
collected data for a wide range of dog breeds that gives an indicator of the
pet's welfare.
"Humans
and dogs have lived together in close proximity for thousands of years, which
has led to strong emotional and social mutual bonds," Nils Hammerla, part
of the university research team, said.
"A
dog's physical and emotional dependence on their owner means that their
well-being is likely to reflect that of their owner," said Hammerla.
"Any
changes such as the dog being walked less often, perhaps not being fed
regularly, or simply demonstrating 'unhappy' behaviour could be an early
indicator for families that an older relative needs help.
"This
is the first system of its kind which allows us to remotely monitor a dog's
behaviour in its natural setting," said Hammerla.
A
range of dogs was used for the study, as the team needed to map distinct
behaviours that correlate between different breeds.
"This
is the first system of its kind which allows us to remotely monitor a dog's
behaviour in its natural setting. But beyond this it also presents us with a
real opportunity to use man's best friend as a discreet health barometer,"
Hammerla said.
09.10.2013
Pregnant
mum's high stress hormone level could make daughter chain smoker
Adult
women whose mothers had increased levels of stress hormones while they were
pregnant are likelier to become addicted to nicotine, a new study has revealed.
The
40-year longitudinal study provides the first evidence that prenatal exposure
to the class of stress hormones known as glucocorticoids predicts nicotine
dependence later in life - but only for daughters.
It
also confirms previous research that babies born to moms who smoked when
pregnant have an increased risk of nicotine addiction in adulthood.
The
study found that effects of maternal stress hormones and maternal smoking in
pregnancy were additive in predicting nicotine addiction in adult daughters.
Lead
author Laura Stroud, Ph.D., from the Centers for Behavioral and Preventive Medicine
at The Miriam Hospital, said that their study suggests that maternal smoking
and high stress hormones-often linked to high stress and adverse social
conditions-represent a 'double-hit' in terms of increasing an offspring's risk
for nicotine addiction as an adult.
Stroud
said that as mothers who smoke are often more stressed and living in adverse
conditions- these findings represent a public health concern and highlight the
need to help smoking moms quit and reduce stress levels and improve social conditions
for poor pregnant mothers.
Associations
between prenatal exposure to both glucocorticoids - particularly cortisol - and
tobacco smoke emerged only for daughters, which Stroud says it consistent with
some recent research findings.
For
the study, Stroud and colleagues studied 1,086 pairs of mothers and their adult
children (59 percent female) from the New England Family Study, a 40-year
longitudinal follow-up of the Collaborative Perinatal Project based at Brown
University.
The
findings published online by the journal Biological Psychiatry.
09.10.2013
People
who say it cannot be done should not interrupt those who are doing it
George Bernard Shaw
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