Authors’ Response: Health Benefits/Hazards Associated with Companion Animal-Exposure Might be Endpoint-and-Animal Specific

• Published in: High blood pressure & cardiovascular prevention Vol. 23; no. 3; pp. 263 - 264
• Main Authors: Ogechi, Imala, Snook, Kassandra, Davis, Bionca M., Hansen, Andrew R., Liu, Fengqi, Zhang, Jian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cham Springer International Publishing 01.09.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animals; Cardiology; Cardiovascular disease; Disease prevention; Exercise; Humans; Letter to the Editor; Lung cancer; Medicine; Medicine & Public Health; Mortality; Pets; Pharmacotherapy; Public health; Stroke; Womens health; Nutritional Examination Survey; Companion Animal; Chronic Medical Condition; Decrease Blood Pressure; Weak Relationship
• ISSN: 1120-9879; 1179-1985
• DOI: 10.1007/s40292-016-0165-0

For these reasons, we believe that our study [1], in nature, was exploratory, as such, we tried to minimize the type II error and did not adjust for multiple comparisons, which in turn may end with an increased type I error as Dr. Gillum was concerned. [...]in addition to the “single finding (women living with cats and stroke)”, all the estimates for women were below the null value regardless of the cardiovascular endpoints (last column of table 2) [1], showing a consistency behind the single finding we discussed extensively. Before our study, there has been a substantial body of studies, unfortunately with most conducted among patients, showing decreased blood pressure and increased physical activity, improved lipid profiles and autonomic tone, normalized sympathetic responses to stress, and better survivability after coronary events among populations with various cardiovascular risks [5].