WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Owning a cat offers many health benefits, including reduced stress and emotional support, and new research suggests our feline friends might also offer clues to better treat certain cancers.

That’s according to a new study published Thursday in the journal Science, which investigated cancers in cats and found significant parallels with how the disease plays out in humans.

Previous studies had highlighted similar links between dogs and humans, but little research focused on cats, said co-author Louise van der Weyden, a scientist at the British Wellcome Sanger Institute.

Cats, just like dogs, provide “a great model for us,” she told Agence France-Presse (AFP), because they share an environment with humans that includes similar pollution, such as second-hand smoke.

“They develop other illnesses that we do when you get cancer,” Van der Weyden told AFP, explaining that cancer can be accompanied by ailments like diabetes or heart disease. Not infrequently, she said, the “animals will have that, too.”

With this principle as their guide, the international research team analyzed cancerous tumor samples from nearly 500 domestic cats across five countries.

They covered 13 types of cancer, including brain, breast, lung and skin.

Since cancers develop from genetic mutations, researchers probed the DNA of cat tumor cells for markers already known in human medicine.

Several similarities emerged, especially when it comes to breast cancer.

In more than half of the feline mammary tumors analyzed, the gene FBXW7, which has already been identified in humans, was found to have mutated.

This type of mutation is not common in women with breast cancer, but when it does occur it’s particularly aggressive, Van der Weyden said.