A new study from the Johns Hopkins University Institute of Medicine shows that exposure to family pets in the first few years of life can reduce the risk of developing schizophrenia in adulthood.

Talking about the original intention of this study, Robert Yolken, the lead author of the paper, said: "Severe mental illness is closely related to the environment in which children grow up, and household pets are usually creatures that children have close contact with, so we hope to find these two relationship between them."

In their current study, Yolken and colleagues studied 1,371 men and women between the ages of 18,371 and 65, including 396 people with schizophrenia, 381 people with bipolar disorder, and 594 controls. Information recorded for each individual included age, gender, race/ethnicity, place of birth and highest level of parental education (as measured by socioeconomic status).

The team charted the relationship between age at first household pet exposure and psychiatric diagnoses using statistical models that produced hazard ratios. The team conducted the analysis across four age groups: birth to 3 years old, 4 to 5 years old, 6 to 8 years old, and 9 to 12 years old.

Surprisingly, Yolken said, the findings showed that people who were exposed to pet dogs before their 13th birthday were significantly less likely (as much as 24 percent) to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. Children who had a pet dog at home when they were born, or who were exposed to a pet dog after birth but before the age of 3, had the lowest risk of schizophrenia.

If the study data are reflective of current reality, Yolken said, then the roughly 840,000 cases of schizophrenia (24% of the 3.5 million people diagnosed with the disease in the U.S.) could be explained by dog ​​ownership. way to prevent and treat it, and it can be prevented in this way.

However, research results have not found a link between cat ownership and schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.