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My Tabby Gave Me Toxoplasma: Study Finds Woman Are 150% More Likely To Commit Suicide If They Own Cats

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

36 thoughts on “My Tabby Gave Me Toxoplasma: Study Finds Woman Are 150% More Likely To Commit Suicide If They Own Cats”

  1. Cats are still better than dogs. You don’t have to take them for walks in bad weather.

  2. 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.)

  3. “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.”

    Woosty,

    Do you have any videos of cats eating unwashed vegetables or drinking water from a contaminated source or eating undercooked or raw infected meat?

    I mean, don’t make us think you are anal dood …

    Lets get religious and cast out that Toxoplasma demon:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wcwZXOPA7o&w=512&h=312]

  4. I tried to teach one of my cats to use the toilet. As soon as he fell in that was the end of that.

  5. well, the impulse is Universal…the ability to control it…not so much.

  6. Woosty’s still a Cat 1, July 3, 2012 at 11:30 am

    Dredd are you posting that on all the days threads????

    a better solution….
    ===============================
    Same difference …

    From Deth Starr:

    “We gotta build one [death star] …
    we gotta build a hundred …
    we gotta build a million …”

    Just like the cat selecting asswipe … gotta have one … a hundred … a million … to get the imaginary job done …

  7. If you let your cat roam free, they’re at risk of bringing home all sorts of zoonotic conditions that can affect you. Bacteria like bartonella or salmonella. Parasites like fleas, round worms or hook worms. Fungal infections like ringworm. Protozoans like cryptosporidium and giardia (and toxoplasmosis). And those are just the very common things, that you can get without even knowing it. Still… it’s all the more reason to keep cats indoors to control what they are exposed to. The headline is just an attention grabber.

  8. It has always been the policy here to have house cats or barn cats but that never the twain shall meet. Toxoplasmosis is only one of many reasons to adopt this strategy. It works out better for both human and cat in the long run.

  11. I was going to say…I read that Atlantic article, and it really seems like a rather tame piece that’s getting a lot of hits only because it had a provocative, link-baiting headline slapped on it that really didn’t match the factual information within it. I seem to recall it saying that it’s not really possible to get toxoplasmosis from the feces of cats that don’t eat birds or vermin, so if you keep your cats indoors and your house has no problems with rats or mice, you’re home free.

    If it’s true that we women who own cats are more likely to commit suicide, it’s more likely because the antics of their little furry friends have driven us to it. You know…being awakened at the crack of dawn to deliver food, being meowed at for more food every time we approach the kitchen, claw-sharpening on the furniture, hairballs horked up right on our usual walking paths so we can’t miss them, attention-getting tactics such as breakable objects being knocked to the floor or crackly items such as plastic wrappers being chewed, “cat races” in the middle of the night…it’s enough to give one second thoughts about having them around, at any rate. Advantages? In the winter, you get a fur-covered foot-warmer on your bed. Assuming the cat wants to sleep with you, that is. Aaaand…that’s about it.

  12. Dredd are you posting that on all the days threads????

    a better solution….

  13. This song by the Tenacious D cats shows the progression of Toxoplasma gondii during congressional deliberations during budget hearings:

    [youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aqE31g1J0Dw&w=512&h=312]

  15. people have been warned about Toxoplasmosis for years. The ‘suicide’ connection, while interesting and good fodder for mildly amusing headliners….is very prevalent and very cmmon in the entire society and has more vectors than cat. The potential infection is spread via feces….hence the need for care around the catbox…..or, don’t eat undercooked meat or raw rats and birds. The largest danger posed by Toxoplasmosis is to PREGNANT women, who if they become seropositive during the early stages of pregnancy are like to abort the growing fetus.

    Another study shows toxo-effects..’.Increased incidence of traffic accidents in Toxoplasma-infected military drivers and protective effect RhD molecule revealed by a large-scale prospective cohort study that delay reaction times amongst Military Drivers.

    Rather than endanger an already suffering and overtaxed population of cats by creating fear why not learn about the dam disease and pass on the facts???? http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/

    Most indoor cats would not be a threat if they were kept indoors and not exposed to rats.

  16. I didn’t see a nexus to suicide on the face of it, so I read up a bit more at Wikipedia Toxoplasma gondii.

    One statement in that piece is interesting: “The infection is widespread in the brain, with more cysts targeting the parts of the brain corresponding to fear.”

    In mammals that is the amygdala, which is sort of a loose canon at its primal base, and can cause the most destructive of behaviors.

    The Texas tower mass murders at the University of Texas being one relevant case.

    In that case the amygdala had been compressed by a nickel sized tumor, and the potential relevancy is that these Toxoplasma gondii form cysts within brain cells.

    If either amygdala (there are two of them) is messed with, the results could lead to random dysfunctional behaviors.

  19. Does this mean that we’ll be seeing a ban on cats (or at least litter boxes) ???

  20. I have heard of this before…..I would like to know more…..Its interesting to say the least….

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