5 March 2022 | New Scientist | 23HealthPEOPLE who own a dog have a
much lower risk of disability in
older age, but cat owners don’t.
Unsurprisingly, the benefit is
lost if you don’t walk your dog –
or take part in another form of
exercise – more than once a week.
Yu Taniguchi at the National
Institute for Environmental Studies
in Tsukuba, Japan, and his colleagues
asked around 11,000 people aged
65 to 84 years old if they currently
or previously owned a cat or dog.
The researchers then tracked the
onset of cognitive and physical
disability in the participants for
3.5 years between 2016 to 2020.
They found that current dogowners who exercised more than
once a week were around half
as likely to develop a disability
compared with people who had
never owned a dog, even when
controlling for age, sex, income
and health factors such as smoking,
diet and cardiovascular disease.
The team also found that people
who owned dogs in the past had
around a 10 per cent lower risk
of disability compared with those
who had never owned a dog.
Meanwhile, current and former
cat owners were just as likely as
people who had never owned a cat
to develop a disability (PLoS One,
doi.org/hh29). Carissa WongDogs trump cats in helping
people stay fit as they age
JUSTINPAGET/GET
TY
IMAGESGuppy fish fooled
by optical illusionsOptical illusions work on
some fish, but not in the
same way they do on us.
From guppies’ behaviour,
it seems that an optical
illusion that makes a hole
seem larger than it really
is to humans, actually
makes the hole seem
smaller than it is in reality
to these fish (Biology
Letters, doi.org/hhxd).Obesity rates lower
in walkable townsTreating diabetes and
obesity costs healthcare
systems billions each year.
But a review of 170 earlier
studies concludes that
rates of both of these
conditions can be reduced
by transforming towns and
cities into places where it
is safe and convenient to
walk or cycle (Endocrine
Reviews, doi.org/hhxg).Tough tests needed
for new gas projectsThe UK Climate Change
Committee has called for a
tightening of proposed UK
government tests to decide
whether new oil and gas
projects are compatible
with climate targets.
The independent advisory
group also said it wanted to
“bust the myth” that more
drilling was the answer to
current high energy prices.BIO
SP
HO
TO
/AL
AM
Y
Really brief
SleepIT MAY get harder to sleep as we
age because neurons that promote
wakefulness become overactive,
a study in mice suggests.
Luis de Lecea at Stanford
University in California and his
team analysed a set of neurons in
the hypothalamus of mouse brains
that produce a protein called
hypocretin. These neurons have
been implicated in wakefulness
in both humans and mice.
When comparing this set of
neurons in young and old mice,
they found that the hypocretin
neurons in the older mice fired
more easily – which is known as
being hyperexcitable – and were
therefore overactive. When they
treated older mice with a drug that
reduced this hyperexcitability,
their sleep quality improved
(Science, doi.org/hh34).
De Lecea says he has no
idea what may be causing this
hyperexcitability in the first place,
but since hypocretin neurons are
also present in humans and have
the same function, this gives us a
potential drug target for people.
Beyond worsening quality
of life, poor sleep has also been
linked to the development of
neurological disorders such
as Alzheimer’s disease.
Jason Arunn MurugesuHyper neurons may
lead to poor slumberNew Scientist Daily
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PollutionSCENTED surface-cleaning
products can expose you to
a similar amount of pollutant
particles as a busy urban road
used by 28,000 vehicles a day. The
findings suggest that professional
cleaners may be especially at
risk from indoor pollutants.
Such products often contain
chemicals called monoterpenes
that smell like citrus or pine.
Monoterpenes easily evaporate
into the air where they react withsubstances such as ozone to
produce pollutant particles called
secondary organic aerosols (SOAs).
SOAs – which are also generated
by vehicle fumes – can irritate
your airways and introduce
chemicals into the bloodstream.
Colleen Rosales, while at Indiana
University, and her colleagues
cleaned the floor of an office room
for 15 minutes using a mop soaked
in a scented commercial cleaning
product, repeating this a few hours
later. They then tracked the levels
of small SOAs – with a diameter of
10 nanometres or less – in the air
during and after cleaning.By modelling how particles
enter the respiratory system,
they calculated that being
in a room during 1.5 hours of
mopping would expose the lungs
to similar pollutant particle levels
as 1.5 to 6 hours spent by a busy
road. This was based on previously
published pollution data from
a road used by thousands of
vehicles a day and lined by
multistorey buildings (Science
Advances, doi.org/hh9f).
However, more research is
needed to establish the health
effects of these indoor pollutants,
the team says. Carissa WongCleaning an office
makes dirty air