Humans are on an endless quest for a fountain of youth -- keys to longevity and health -- and we'd like to know what might help our pets live longer, too. Scientists in the U.K. recently published a study, "Longevity and mortality of cats attending primary care veterinary practices in England" in the Journal of Feline Medicine and Surgery, examining factors that were correlated with increased life span and risk of death in domestic cats.
There have been surprisingly few studies on the life span of pet cats. Cats are considered seniors by age 10 and cats typically stop producing offspring by the time they are 11 or 12. Sources report the average life span of cats to be from 10 to 14 years, but little is known about what might cause some cats to live longer lives than others.
The current study utilized veterinary records from September 2009 until December of 2012. To be included in the study, cats had to be noted as deceased in the veterinary records. Other factors that were noted were: sex of the cat (including neuter status), age at time of death, body weight, insurance status, breed and disease status were also included as variables when known. From over 12,000 records of deceased cats, around 4000 were randomly selected for the final dataset.
Some interesting relationships popped up in the dataset. First of all, the median age for cats at the time of death was 14 years, with female cats living a bit longer than males on average (15 vs. 13 years). Purebreds had a shorter life span than "moggies" or crossbred cats (14 vs. 12.5 years on average), with Bengals and Abyssinians having the shortest life span of the purebred cats (it should be noted that the sample sizes for purebreds by breed were relatively small, with an n ranging from 11 to 31). Being neutered and having a lower body weight were also associated with a longer life, and also being non-insured (perhaps insured cats were already ill?).
The causes of death were highly dependent on age, although for all cats, trauma was the number one cause of death (12.2 percent of all deceased cats), with 60 percent of those deaths attributed to being hit by a car. This effect was particularly strong in cats under the age of five. For older cats, kidney disease and tumors were also common, whereas young cats were more likely to succumb to viral infections and respiratory disorders.