Toxoplasmosis, Schizophrenia, and Bipolar Disorder

[Mal12345]

If you owned a cat as a child, especially an outdoor cat, you are a great risk for contracting a mental disorder caused by the toxoplasma gondii bacteria.

“In schizophrenia, the evidence of an association with T. gondii is overwhelming.”

Studies find link between cat ownership and schizophrenia - WTOP

 

[Sunflower_Moon]

I saw that article, and my reaction was "Thank God I was already grown and out of the house by the time my mother decided to start collecting cats!" As long as cat owners keep the number of cats to a minimum and clean the litter box within a certain amount of time before the bacteria can breed, the danger isn't extremely high.

 

[BadOctopus]

I work in animal care, and I've been hearing about this for a while. And actually, I have gotten a mild case of toxoplasmosis from getting clawed by an angry cat at work. I had swollen lymph glands and flu-like symptoms for a few weeks. It sucked. So far I haven't had any bizarre compulsions or auditory hallucinations, though, so I think I'm good.

Many of my colleagues and superiors would say that owning a cat does not put your family at risk for schizophrenia. But since there is an established correlation between T. gondii and schizophrenia, and cats are proven carriers of the bacteria, I'm not as quick to write off the possibility. Especially since a lot of people I've met who own a buttload of cats also seem to have some sort of mental disorder, and generally do not live in hygienic conditions.

But maybe they would even if they didn't own cats. So I don't know. But I'm not presumptuous enough to say there's absolutely no link between the two.

 

[Sunflower_Moon]

I definitely think that those who collect cats have had a mental illness before they had that many cats. . .there always seems to be something off about them. It seems like OCD or OCPD gone wrong, addictive personalities, or other types of issues. I don't think that schizophrenia is something someone can just develop once they've already been born though, as far as I know. It may seem to develop, but it's something that they're born with in their genes and can even be seen on MRI's or fMRI's (I forget which) with having some type of brain abnormality in one area. Also the functions of their Wernicke's area and Broca's area can be reversed, and they may actually be hearing their own thoughts instead and mistaking them for others. That's one of the theories in psychiatry and psychology.

If T. gondii is linked to schizophrenia, I'd think it's most likely to effect an unborn baby in the womb while all of the genes are making copies, and when the brain is developing, mainly a critical period of development. When adults seem to suddenly get schizophrenia, I don't think it's because they got infected with it as an adult, but I think instead it was already in their genes, and schizophrenia is one of those disorders where you can have it in your genes your entire life without it ever being expressed. For others, it make take a stressful event or a series of stressful events to trigger the schizophrenia. I'm sure T. gondii can also cause other health issues in adults, but not schizophrenia. I could be wrong because they keep finding new information on these things all the time. But people who hoard or collect cats tend to have had some type of mental illness before they got the cats, and people just failed to recognize it until it showed up in an obvious way.

 

[BadOctopus]

But people who hoard or collect cats tend to have had some type of mental illness before they got the cats, and people just failed to recognize it until it showed up in an obvious way.

This. My sister is bipolar, and she is an obsessive collector. Actually, she just has an obsessive-compulsive personality, period. She continually checks her appearance in the mirror (probably upwards of fifty times a day), and she obsessively brings up the same few topics over and over, using the same phrasing every time. But it's most obvious in the way she collects things: clothes, purses, shoes, CDs, figurines. I have no doubt that, if her landlord allowed it, she would collect animals, as well.

So yeah, sometimes it's the mentality that's already there that causes people to collect a bazillion cats.

 

[cascadeco]

Well I recall as a child, 30+ years ago, they were telling pregnant women not to change/clean litter boxes, due to toxoplasmosis. Then a matter of a few years ago I heard they now say it's ok.

Without having read the article, if scientists say there's a link, I would think that means there's a link; I imagine studies will continue to be done while they finetune exactly what happens. For now, in my head (which isn't saying much), it seems like what [MENTION=25424]Sunflower_Moon[/MENTION] suggests makes sense, that it can impact a developing fetus. But who knows, maybe bacteria encountered as an adult, if you already have some sort of genetic disposition, can trigger/activate those genes.

 

[prplchknz]

if they ban cats because of this i'm gonna be pissed. i grew up with cats up to 3 at a time, and i'm fine not everyone goes crazy cuz they have kitties from before infancy.and they've already banned beef in india it's becoming a controller's world so we must fight to do what the fuck we want as long as we're not fucking others over.

 

[BadOctopus]

if they ban cats because of this i'm gonna be pissed.

I doubt they'll "ban cats", prpl. They rule the Internet, after all.

 

[prplchknz]

I doubt they'll "ban cats", prpl. They rule the Internet, after all.

this is exactly how stuff like this happens. is oh they rule the internet. and no one puts up precautions

 

[Chrysanthea]

If anything prevents me from ever getting a cat it would be because of all the disgusting and overused memes and not the health effects mentioned here. The thought of a cat meme or another cat video actually makes me feel like vomiting. The internet just ruined cats for me.

 

[Sunflower_Moon]

I don't think they'll ban cats, because then anything can be banned. There will most likely just be guidelines to minimize the risk (cleaning the poo out of the litter box every 24-48 hours...I forget which), and warnings about what could happen otherwise. They did the same with cigarettes and alcohol despite how many health issues they may causes as well as deaths each year. I wouldn't support banning cats--I just support eliminating animal hoarding (it's cruel to the animals anyway) and practicing good hygiene. Nothing is 100% preventable though.

 

[Sunflower_Moon]

[MENTION=1206]cascadeco[/MENTION] You know what? I never thought of that, and that could be entirely possible as well! Illnesses do trigger mental disorders sometimes as well as autoimmune disorders. Maybe if they get sick from the T. gondii badly enough, or there are enough other contributing factors present, maybe it could trigger schizophrenia. Illness absolutely puts stress on the body, and stress commonly activates these mental disorders unfortunately.

 

[kyuuei]

1. Omg I love all the comments from the angry cat-owners in those articles.
2. It's a really interesting discovery. Anything that gives us a pinpoint as to how people can get schizo outside of "uhh.. family history.. and.. uh.. don't smoke kids!"
3. Marijuana users should be (somewhat) happy about this as people tend to blame drug use a lot for mental illness (and being 80% wrong).

Schizophrenia is super interesting.. and we're barely scratching the surface on mental illnesses and finding true explanations for them. Such a minority disease in the first place, and limited data and explanations, it's such a mystery. Having ANY data with a correlation to something external is an awesome break through. It might lead to nothing. It might lead to something. It might be marijuana-style "Oh yeah, so marijuana doesn't cause bipolar issues, but sometimes it can bring them out in people pre-disposed to them" and we can explore the brain more for what pre-disposes people to schizophrenia. It might be that kids are genuinely at risk, but adults are fine, or that pregnant women exposed to cats and prenatal exposure is what the threat is. It might be that this is all hogwash and the data was sort of sketchy and turns out this is nonsense from a dude who had a cat disfigure his lip. Who knows?

 

[kyuuei]

Well I recall as a child, 30+ years ago, they were telling pregnant women not to change/clean litter boxes, due to toxoplasmosis.

They definitely still say that. It was a big teaching point when I was in school last year to tell pregnant women not to clean/change litter boxes.

Another, off topic, astonishing thing is how few nurses teach women about letting their child sleep alone on their backs. It was a HUGE campaign in the 90's and it helped SO much with SIDS, and yet no one is really paying attention to it anymore it seems like. No one talked to either of my sisters about it when they had all of their 4 children combined. I went BANANAS all the time about my sister just letting her baby son sleep on his stomach with a crib full of stuffed animals.

 

[sprinkles]

If cats make me sick, I'm not sure I'd want to be well.

 

[Ene]

Maybe they will just ban dirty litter boxes.

 

[prplchknz]

no they're gonna end up banning everything. its gonna be slow and over 200-500 years but i predict it will happen if we don't nuke ourselves first, slowly things are gonna be taken and we will not be allowed to think for ourselves. why do you think the internet encourages to think everyone is stupid and post proof of it? its the starting point of that. but articles like this is the start of banning cats one thing gone. and more are gonna come out and people are gonna be like OMG we should ban cats and 50 years of debates then that side is gonna win and we won't be allowed cats. this is the whole purpose of the media

 

[SD45T-2]

"This is a song I wrote when I was 3."

 

[tkae.]

T. gondii is a known teratogen (toxic environmental shit that affects embroyonic development), so pregnant women should already be staying away from cat litter.

Schizophrenia, though? Eh.

Maybe. I can see a circumstance where it might cause it. Any time you're doing stuff with your brain, it can go wrong. There's a theory with some traction that cold and flu during pregnancy can cause schizophrenia. And pretty much any time you have something affect the brain, it runs the risk of causing a mental illness. Brain infections, strokes, drugs (marijuana and meth = schizophrenia, cocaine = bipolar disorder, etc)... so it's very possible you can develop mental illnesses from it.

But specifically schizophrenia? There needs to be more research before we draw any kind of conclusion about it. There's a difference between an infection in the spine causing paralysis and that infection by definition causing paralysis. By that logic, bullets cause paralysis. The point being? If it hits you in the spine? Yeah, it causes paralysis, but it won't cause paralysis every time it hits you because that's not the nature of a bullet.

The bigger thing I think we should remember from these studies is that correlational research can never draw conclusions about cause and effect. You should especially never trust a correlational study when it's reported by the news, because it's very probably wrong. If I gave enough fucks about it, I would do a study showing the correlation between reports on "links" found through correlational research as reported by the media and the times they've turned out to actually have any kind of truth. It would be a very weak correlation.

The very act of examining the statistics of two things, be it cat ownership and schizophrenia or left-handedness and violent crimes, creates a correlation. A correlation is the relationship between those two things, whether it's strong or weak or otherwise.

Even if it's an extremely strong correlation, it means next to nothing. Ice cream and murder rates have a strong correlation. Why? Because ice cream sales go up when it's hot, as do murder rates.

So 10/10 would not remove cats from the house over this. They aren't even conclusive correlations anyways. They're early-stage. One of them even says in the abstract "We urge our colleagues to try and replicate these findings to clarify whether childhood cat ownership is truly a risk factor for later schizophrenia."