It appears that dogs have a new talking point in the eternal Dogs v. Cats debate. Researchers have found that women are more likely to commit suicide if they own cats because they can contract the Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) parasite from kitty litters. Researchers found about one third of the world’s population is infected with the parasite.
The study involved more than 45,000 women in Denmark and is linked to mental illness, such as schizophrenia. The researchers include senior author Doctor Teodor Postolache, an associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine.
Humans can become infected by changing their infected cats’ litter boxes as well as eating unwashed vegetables or drinking water from a contaminated source or by eating undercooked or raw infected meat.
The study found that women infected with T. gondii were one and a half times more likely to attempt suicide or experience mental illness.
One of the subjects was caught recently by a young investigative reporter:
Source: Telegraph
from your blog Dredd… ‘Are Microbes The Origin of PTSD?’
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no, they aren’t.
No more than Ayn Rand is the Mother of the Republican GOP failure to humanize. Or is she….????
The origin of PTSD is ‘S’ and especially within the context of ‘T’.
Microbes may affect some aspects of behaviour….goodness knows I can’t get much done when I am ill, but some goon deliberately placing another human bean into an unrecoverable state of ‘S’ is more a perversion from societal norms..(I hope….),and I think the failure of others to stop that element of behaviour, especially when being brought to awareness of it, (ala Penn State…) is the true culprit. And then we need to ask ourselves on a societal level; ‘What have we done to become so susceptable to the negative aspects of a microbe, or a behaviour, that we allow rank and frank abuse to become the ‘new norm’ in our social behaviour rather than make it safer and more the norm to simply speak out about the infecting behaviour? And finally, how to immunize against further degradation and shed the virus before the society suffers further?
ps; while I think the microbe theory is not altogether without merit I don’t think we can blame some microbe for everything…..in the end it isn’t the dirt that kills us…it is the fear of not being ‘clean enough’ and the striving for a purity that does not exist in the natural world. Didn’t you see Harry Potter?
Woosty’s still a Cat 1, July 11, 2012 at 3:54 pm
I would say that most people who have owned dogs and/or cats knew, even before this study, that the benefits of owning furbabies far surpassed the risks…
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True dat.
The microbes are upwards of 98% helpful to the mammalian species, of which humans are late bloomers.
Only a small percentage are harmful.
While it is true that microbes go back billions of years, I hypothesize that T. gondii originated sometime after the K-T boundary extinction ~65 million years ago.
I have traced cats back ~20,000,000 years (fossil record), and am reading which papers that trace its history in scientific literature back ~100 years.
Professor Dubey is my core source.
There is a twin to T. gondii, N. caninum, which was for decades confused with and also called “T. gondii”.
It isn’t because it does not reproduce ONLY in cat intestines, as does T. gondii.
N. caninum causes abortions in cattle and seems to me to have a common ancestor with T. gondii.
Further, I have sources that show T.gondii is found in marine mammals too.
Can you imagine the shock that occurred 65m years ago when an asteroid killed 90% of land life, and 50% of ocean life?
The microbes within the dinosaurs and other life would have had to find new hosts en masse, and there was no doubt a lot of PTSD generated.
T.gondii which generates a lot of sociopathic and psychopathic behavior in mammals today, probably was a cool microbe that lost it during that timeframe.
I would say that most people who have owned dogs and/or cats knew, even before this study, that the benefits of owning furbabies far surpassed the risks…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/07/09/health-benefits-pets-respiratory-infection-healthier-kids_n_1659424.html
I am researching the origin of toxoplasma gondii, and I find that it is also found in dogs, and is so similar to Neospora caninum the two were indistinguishable for decades until better genetic tools were developed.
“And you get males infected with Toxo and expose them to a lot of the cat pheromones, and their testes get bigger……………………………….Totally amazing… So what about humans? A small literature is coming out now reporting neuropsychological testing on men who are Toxo-infected, showing that they get a little bit impulsive… ….”
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it certainly could explain soooooooo much……
Woosty’s still a Cat 1, July 6, 2012 at 4:02 pm
Dredd, from the Scientific American link;
” “We can’t say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves.”
“In fact, we have not excluded reverse causality as there might be risk factors for suicidal behavior that also make people more susceptible to infection with T. gondii,” ”
…….
so while the strong correlation is excellent impetus for further testing, the rest is rather speculative and along the lines of, oh I dunno, the San Diego fireworks????
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Right, the well known statistical lack of nexus between percentages and the actual events.
Common, as suspected in my first comment up-thread.
However, I looked into this brain reconstruction issue much deeper, and it is far more earth shaking than even JT alluded to.
He understated the case actually, he did not overstate the case.
But, it is not a female or male scenario.
It is a human brain story, which is beyond belief … a world renowned scientist explains … so read this to get the gist of it.
Dredd, from the Scientific American link;
” “We can’t say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves.”
“In fact, we have not excluded reverse causality as there might be risk factors for suicidal behavior that also make people more susceptible to infection with T. gondii,” ”
…….
so while the strong correlation is excellent impetus for further testing, the rest is rather speculative and along the lines of, oh I dunno, the San Diego fireworks????
Anonymously Yours 1, July 3, 2012 at 8:39 am
I have heard of this before…..I would like to know more…..Its interesting to say the least…
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The real story, that will blow your mind, is the research being done by world renown brain scientists.
I did find an article that supports what JT posted. And supports it fully.
Scientific American.
Thanks JT, I am going to use this research material in an upcoming blog post.
Just checking on what requires moderation. WOPS
this is just a plot to make men empty the litter box.
“Cats are still better than dogs. You don’t have to take them for walks in bad weather.”
No this is exactly why dogs are good for your health. They make you get up off your duff in all sorts of weather, no excuses.
I knew a woman who killed herself and we all suspected this bacteria, she had lots of cats and got nutty over time. She wouldn’t get tested, thats how nuts she was. I talked to her best friend years afterward who still thinks this is why she killed herself.
JT wasnt pulling the wool over but the writer of the article sure wanted to pull you in with his (her) hysterical, Oh No!! headline. ((*_*))
leejcaroll 1, July 3, 2012 at 3:01 pm
Dredd, if your cat likes say the sweetness of carrots he won;t wait til you wash it if its somewhere he can get. Same with raw meat, turn your head for a sec while you are making patties and there goes raw meat right down their gullet. It’s like saying a kid will never eat contaminated meat and get ecoli. I mean how many kids has that happened to? Wish the answer was none.
(Sry not Wootsy but had to give my 2cents.)
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LOL.
“Humans can become infected by [cat litter] as well as eating unwashed vegetables or drinking water from a contaminated source or by eating undercooked or raw infected meat.”
I can’t help think that JT pulled the cat wool over our eyes on this one.
That is why I said in my first comment “I didn’t see a nexus to suicide on the face of it…”
This video explains the progression of the disease. Legal professionals take notice: you are more vulnerable.
http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/65807/detail/