Kissing your dog could improve your health

Researchers at the University of Arizona believe microbes in a dog's gut may have a probiotic effect on the human body.

They dip their noses into all sorts of unsavoury places – but smooching your pet dog could actually be good for your health. Researchers at the University Arizona (UA) believe that the microbes contained in a dog's gut could have a probiotic effect on the human body - encouraging the growth of positive microorganisms.

And now these scientists are recruiting participants in the hope of proving their hypothesis.

"We've co-evolved with dogs over the millennia, but nobody really understands what it is about this dog-human relationship that makes us feel good about being around dogs," said Kim Kelly, an anthropology doctoral student and one of the primary investigators on the study.

The study is being conducted under the university's new Human-Animal Interaction Research Initiative, which aims to bring researchers from different disciplines together, to explore the mutual benefits of human-animal relationships.

Kelly will work alongside collaborators from the UA Department of Psychiatry, the UA Norton School of Family and Consumer Sciences, the UA School of Animal and Comparative Biomedical Sciences, and the University of California, San Diego, in order to explore whether living with a furry companion boosts physical and mental health in older adults.

"We think dogs might work as probiotics to enhance the health of the bacteria that live in our guts. These bacteria, or 'microbiota,' are increasingly recognized as playing an essential role in our mental and physical health, especially as we age," said Dr. Charles Raison, principal investigator for the study and a UA professor of psychiatry in the College of Medicine.

"We know that not all bacteria are good. We can get very sick from the 'bad' bacteria, and modern medicine has done a wonderful job of protecting us from various diseases that are created by these bacteria," said Raison.

"But unfortunately, by eliminating the bad bacteria we've started eliminating the 'good' bacteria, too."

Participants in the study will be paired with a dog from the humane society and live with the animal in their home for three months. At the start of the study the researchers will non-invasively evaluate the participants' gut bacteria, diet, physical activity levels and immune function. The dogs' gut bacteria and physical activity levels also will be measured via non-invasive means.

These tests will be repeated after one, two and three months to find out if there have been any positive impacts on gut microflora in either the humans or the dogs.

The participants will all be aged over 50 and will not have lived with a dog for at least six months.

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