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Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

journals.plos.org

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Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#21

Post by tracyhenry »

knicholes wrote: post #4
gcheong wrote: post #3

"Sixty percent of cat owners sleep with their cats, which may enhance their sense of security and improve their quality of sleep" Maybe, but now only between the hours of 10pm - 5:30am, for me anyway.

In my case, it demolishes any chance of restful sleep. She literally walks all over me. She'll meow at the door if I shut the door. So it's either meows or walking. It's a ... nightmare.

Instead of intimidation, simply ignoring it (i.e. absolutely not opening the door whatsoever) can work.

It can take a while so be patient. My kitty stopped meowing at night after I do this for two weeks, and has never since meowed at night.

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#22

Post by trhway »

UncleOxidant wrote: post #11
knicholes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case, it demolishes any chance of restful sleep. She literally walks all over me. She'll meow at the door if I shut the door. So it's either meows or walking. It's a ... nightmare.

Getting an automatic feeder has helped a lot. The cats used to wake us up at 3AM for food. Now it's much better. One of them still comes in at around 5:30AM to play, but that's not so bad.

not surprising giving that the cats are night hunters. With age though our cat was meowing if we were still up starting around 12am and until we'd go to bed, basically he was enforcing our the typical routine (and yes, he was sleeping with us, and the cats are big on routine)

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#23

Post by eyelidlessness »

gcheong wrote: post #3

"Sixty percent of cat owners sleep with their cats, which may enhance their sense of security and improve their quality of sleep" Maybe, but now only between the hours of 10pm - 5:30am, for me anyway.

My most recent cat, who sadly died a couple years ago, was unusually snuggly. We slept in physical contact, often spooning some or all of the night, for most of the 12 years I had her. She was particularly well adapted to me, my habits and my schedule… I was very fortunate!

I had a really rough bout of insomnia, along with a bad mental health stretch not long after she died. I didn’t make the connection until recently that sleep without my cat might have contributed.

But now I have a particularly snuggly pup, which has improved my quality of sleep beyond even that previous high point. We definitely have to adapt more to each other’s schedule. But it’s surprisingly mutual adaptation, and surprisingly malleable.

Sorry for the long personal response. I have no idea how much wiggle room there is with your cat(s), but I hope you find the benefits of the relationship worth whatever tradeoffs come with the sleep schedule.

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#24

Post by shusaku »

> Through self-reporting, we found 214 individuals who claimed that they owned cats but no other pet (Cat group), while 214 individuals who did not own a pet were matched with the Cat group by gender, body mass index (BMI), and age (no cat (NC) group)

Somewhat tangential question, but what algorithm would you use in order to pick the control group here? And what if instead I wanted to build the largest control group that still matched the features of my test group?

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#25

Post by mLuby »

cunthorpe wrote: post #18
gilbetron wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We learned years ago that our cats get put in the lower part of our house with the door closed at night. We felt bad about it, but being able to sleep all night made up for it. Quick story: for several nights, I'd wake up in the middle of the night with horrendous stomach pains. I was thinking I needed to see the doctor it was so painful. Then on the fourth night when the pain hit I woke up fast enough to notice our…

That’s hilarious. Goes to show how impossible some “debugging” is. No sane doctor would say “so your stomach hurts at night, do you own a fat cat?”

Sounds perfect for a Dr. House mystery.

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#26

Post by brandmeyer »

If I'm reading the scatter plots correctly, it looks like the differences in the means between the two populations is much smaller than the one-sigma variation within each population. So while the correlations may technically be statistically significant, they aren't necessarily impactful.

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#27

Post by jv22222 »

gcheong wrote: post #3

"Sixty percent of cat owners sleep with their cats, which may enhance their sense of security and improve their quality of sleep" Maybe, but now only between the hours of 10pm - 5:30am, for me anyway.

> "Sixty percent of cat owners sleep with their cats, which may enhance their sense of security and improve their quality of sleep"

I regularly open my eyes in the middle of the night and my cat's face is about 5 inches away from mine, just sitting there perfectly still, staring at me.

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#28

Post by setgree »

brandmeyer wrote: post #26

If I'm reading the scatter plots correctly, it looks like the differences in the means between the two populations is much smaller than the one-sigma variation within each population. So while the correlations may technically be statistically significant, they aren't necessarily impactful.

This is exactly the intuition behind Cohen’s d — the standard unit of comparison for meta-analysis. You take the mean difference between the treatment group and the control group, and divide that number by the standard deviation of the dependent variable, and then assess that result in many studies to see which treatment, or class of treatments, moved the needle the most.

Re: Effects of cat ownership on the gut microbiota of owners

#30

Post by eyelidlessness »

castlecrasher2 wrote: post #5
knicholes wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my case, it demolishes any chance of restful sleep. She literally walks all over me. She'll meow at the door if I shut the door. So it's either meows or walking. It's a ... nightmare.

Cruel as it may sound, you could try establishing dominance. We have a male cat who would meow EVERY MORNING sometime between 2 and 4 am. We tried many kinds of discipline, but it didn't stop until one morning I chased him into hiding downstairs and it hasn't happened since. Every morning after for about a week I would go out of my way to thank him and give him attention. I know many out there would say that running…

This is something that comes up more with human/dog relationships but I think it’s worth mentioning here too: there’s nothing wrong with this as a training approach if, and because, the pet trusts you and baseline feels safe with you. If they feel unsafe or haven’t made that assessment it can be traumatic and even personality-altering.

I don’t want to discourage anyone from any kind of safe, instinct triggering corrective action. But I do recommend something similar to what people say about human child discipline: act consistently and with intent.

Don’t accept some instances of a bad behavior sometimes and correct others; if you’ve decided this is your approach stick with it unless you see harm in following through. Don’t overreact out of frustration; think through what you’re going to do, and be sure it’s safe and something you’re gonna be comfortable reflecting on when it’s over.

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