Dogs and their owners share same diabetes risk, study says

It’s often said that dogs come to resemble their owners with time. The similarities, however, may now have extended to their risk of diabetes, a research suggests.

A new study from researchers in Sweden and the United Kingdom have found that owning a dog with diabetes was tied to a 38 per cent increased risk of type 2 diabetes for the dog owner.

The risk of developing diabetes was also 28 per cent higher in dogs with an owner who had type 2 diabetes compared with dogs with an owner who did not have the ailment. This estimate, however, was reduced after adjusting for age of the owner.

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Why the correlation between pooches and their human pals? According to researchers led by Beatrice Kennedy, of Uppsala University in Sweden,

The study further suggests that since dogs and their owners share the same home, they share same behavioral risks too. Those risks include what they eat and how much (or how little) they exercise.

The study compared data from 208,980 owner/dog and 123,566 owner/cat pairs.

The absence of a shared risk between cats and their owners may also point towards physical activity being an important factor.