Does coming home after a long day at work to your feline friend make you feel less stressed? A scientist at Cornwall College Newquay has shown a link between owning a cat and feeling more relaxed, both physically and mentally.

The study entitled “Does cat attachment have an effect on human health? A comparison between owners and volunteers,” shows that for both owners and volunteers, cardiovascular measures such as blood pressure and heart rate decreases in the presence of a cat. This reduction is more consistent and larger for owners at home than for volunteers at a cat rehoming centre.

The research findings by former student Filipa Dinis, have now being published in a peer reviewed scientific journal entitled Pet Behaviour Science. “I’ve always wanted to involve cats in my research," said Filipa. "When I started looking into it, I realised there is still quite a vague area focusing on relationship between humans and pets. In particular, most research found focus more on dogs than cats.

“I was also interested in the aspect of bonding, since people see their pet in different ways. Even within the same house people behave differently to the same animal. So I kind of took it from here and started looking more into it. Then we had the idea of comparing cat owners with volunteers at a rescue centre and that is how things started.”

The study found that the volunteers showed a comparable reduction in systolic blood pressure when in the presence of a cat. However, it is for owners that the effect was larger. In addition, the calming effect or the reduction in cardiovascular measurements, were greater the more attached the owner reported to be to the cat.

These results support the body of evidence that shows cats can be a healthy pleasure, particularly for owners who have had their cats longer than two years. The study also raises an interesting possibility that it is the "family pet and the home environment" that generates the health benefits and that tactile contact with a cat that is not very familiar, for example in a work environment, yields fewer health benefits.

Filipa said: “Since this is a difficult area to assess and there is always different influential factors, eg lifestyle, health status, place where research take place, etc; I think further research should refine their methods to be able to improve the measure of the effects, of the relationship between humans and cats.”

Programme manager for the BSC in applied zoology, Thais Martins, who supervised and co-authored the study, added: “This is a tremendous demonstration of the high level of research being conducted by our students during their time at Cornwall College Newquay. This body of evidence raises some interesting possibilities and I’m delighted that Filipa has thought about how she could further her research.”