Maine Coon vs Siberian

Maine Coons are marketed as a robust, 'naturally healthy' breed, but a lab analysis of thousands of samples found roughly a third of Maine Coons worldwide carry a gene mutation linked to a potentially fatal heart disease, and plenty of kittens are still sold by breeders who have never screened their breeding cats for it.

Siberians are marketed as 'hypoallergenic,' but no cat breed is allergen-free — every cat produces the Fel d 1 protein that triggers allergic reactions, and while research suggests roughly half of Siberians produce somewhat less of it than average (about a fifth produce notably little), the rest do not, so the only reliable way to know if a specific cat works for an allergic person is to spend real time with that individual cat first.