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July 2nd, 2012
04:47 PM ET
Weird science: Kitty litter increases risk of suicide?A small subset of suicide attempts may be linked to an infection that starts in the litter box. A new study suggests an association between Toxoplasma gondii and suicide attempts among women. Interesting finding, to be sure, but how does one even begin to test a theory like this? Why in the world would anyone posit that kitty litter could be related to suicide attempts? As it turns out, about one-third of the population is walking around right now with latent toxoplasma infection. Most people will never know they have it - and most will not attempt suicide as a result of it. But the presence of T. gondii among women who attempted suicide raises interesting questions. Those questions led senior study author, Dr. Teodor Postolache, to find out more. Postolache said he was at first puzzled by studies suggesting low-grade activity in the immune systems of suicide victims. "We were puzzled," said Postolache, associate professor of psychiatry and director of the Mood and Anxiety Program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We wanted to know what could contribute to that activation." As he later discovered, T. gondii is associated with schizophrenia and, in other studies, associated with suicide. So he and colleagues decided to take a closer look at a group in Denmark, where they already had an ongoing allergy study, and where patient data is meticulously kept. Their T. gondii study was conducted among 45,788 women in Denmark between 1992 and 1995. What Postolache and colleagues found is that women infected with T. gondii had one-and-a-half times higher risk of attempting suicide when compared with women with no infection. According to the study, published Monday in the Archives of General Psychiatry, "the risk seemed to increase with increasing... antibody level." So, the more antibodies found in the blood reacting to T. gondii, the higher the risk of a suicide attempt. Postolache tempers the finding by pointing out that the chances of having T. gondii infection and never attempting suicide is much higher than attempting it. "This is a very prevalent parasite, a very successful parasite, that affects one-third of the world population," said Postolache, a senior consultant on suicide prevention for the Baltimore VA Medical Center. "One-third of them are not attempting suicide." True, but another scientist says that results of this study represent the "tip of the iceberg" in terms of answering broader questions, like could infections like T. gondii contribute to mental disorders? "There's a strong association between certain types of infection at certain times in life and various psychiatric problems," said Dr. Charles Raison, associate professor of psychiatry at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "We have these simple ideas about infection and illness like you get the influenza virus and then get the flu. One bug equals one illness. What we now know is it's much more complicated than that. Infections can produce a lot of secondary effects," he added. In the context of the current study, that means T. gondii may not be causally linked to increased suicide risk, but a more global and complex process may begin with infection. "It appears that toxoplasmosis does things that unbalance emotional mental functioning," said Raison, CNNHealth.com's mental health expert. "Depending on other risk factors, maybe it makes you depressed, maybe it makes you impulsive." But before you usher your kitty (along with its offending litter) out of the pet door, consider that those (many and complex) other factors - not just the T. gondii - are likely at work in the mind of a person who ultimately attempts suicide. "All those factors may interact with or moderate the T. gondii," said Postolache. "Investigating that will be important."
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This is indeed a very irresponsible article. There are many ways to become infected with Toxoplasma gondii and exposure to cat feces is actually not the most common way that people are infected in the United States. Gardening and exposure to undercooked pork, and especially poor food handling when preparing pork is the most common way that people in the United States are infected. Also, you would have to EAT the cat feces to become infected, so good hand washing hygiene is all that is required to avoid T. gondii infection from cats. Your veterinarian can do a blood test to test your cats for T. gondii. Also, T. gondii infection is less common in indoor only cats than in cats that go outdoors (cats get it from eating mice). Please don't dump your cat from the terrible misinformation in this article!
People eat Lutefisk, we can't rule out eating cat feces.
A veterinarian wrote:
"This is indeed a very irresponsible article. There are many ways to become infected with Toxoplasma gondii and exposure to cat feces is actually not the most common way that people are infected in the United States. Gardening and exposure to undercooked pork, and especially poor food handling when preparing pork is the most common way that people in the United States are infected. Also, you would have to EAT the cat feces to become infected, so good hand washing hygiene is all that is required to avoid T. gondii infection from cats. Your veterinarian can do a blood test to test your cats for T. gondii. Also, T. gondii infection is less common in indoor only cats than in cats that go outdoors (cats get it from eating mice). Please don't dump your cat from the terrible misinformation in this article!"
Thank you so much for posting this in response to this irresponsible article. The sad thing is that many people WILL dump their cats because of stupid research like this. IT IS CATISM, I TELL YA!! There seems to not be enough negativity in this world about cats so some psychiatrist does dumb research like this. I think it is more likely the researching psychiatrist actually hates cats and will find anything to show how owning a cat is somehow a "disorder" that will cause you to commit suicide. LOL.
One thing "veterinarian" does not mention is that Toxoplasmosis is also only found in very young cats. So if your indoor only cat was never outdoors and is older than a kitten....the cat is NOT LIKELY to be infected.
Now I will proceed to read the rest of the comments down this page and be sure to find several cat haters who will be saying "see....I told you......THAT is why I 'hate' cats".
You don't need to pick up a nugget and munch on it to get trace amounts of cat feces in you. Cats lick themselves...all over...you pet them...you touch your face or food or...
At this point I wouldn't say the findings warrant a change in life style but maybe handle your cat a little differently.
Agreed 100%, this is a very ignorant article based on premature data with a lot of assumptions attached- this was very irresponsible on CNN's part and I hope animal shelters don't get overrun with ignorant people taking this article seriously.
Thank you for your comment. This is a VERY irresponsible article and those that are gulible enough to just get rid of their cat because of this. Toxiplamosis can come in many different forms and not always through a cat, if you are not sure you can always get tested for it. The biggest concern lies with women that are pregnant, as they can lose their baby. But before you make a bad judgement call, BE BETTER INFORMED with your doctors and vetenarians they will be able to confirm any concerns you have. Cats are amazing animals...
I agree with you wholeheartedly. People who don't like them to begin with are also looking for more reasons to hate cats. I hate to sound flippant, but I think this "hypothesis" is so dumb I'm tempted to ask the question: "Have any cats attempted suicide?"
I disagree with your implication that you'd have to directly eat cat feces to become infected with T. Plasmosis. Go look at your litter box. What do you see aside from the waste and litter? Paw prints. Cats climb into the box and small particles of feces can contaminate their paws. These are the very same paws that are leaving little prints all over you kitchen counter. The same paws that they use to scratch themselves distributing very small amounts of feces onto their fur. You pet them, you pick up something off the counter and suddenly those very small particles of feces loaded with bacteria and parasites (like T. Plasmosis) are now on your hands... It's a very common route of infection and I'm very surprised that you didn't acknowledge that.
I apologize for using the wrong name for the plasmodium in question. I meant to write T. Gondii. I hope you won't let that dismiss the point I was trying to make. Also, I say this as the owner of 4 cats.
Thanks for the clarification. I have ten barn and garage cats but they use the litter boxes that I clean every day
Dont eat or snort the kitty litter and you'll be fine. This is bad science period
Thanks for your post. I thought this was a nonsense, filler article and see the same problems as you and other posters. People who don't process information well or don't read thoroughly are going to be jettisoning their poor kitties left and right AND spreading the news to friends, family and co-workers. Nothing spreads faster than bad news, except maybe highly misleading bad news. No idea what this woman's point was, except maybe to get a junk science bit posted and read. Annoying.
I think they are saying people who own a cat are being exposed to the parasite everyday so their infection is worse, and the worse the infection (more antibodies) the higher risk of suicide.
While it should be considered, you also have to look at other factors as well, which could affect one's tendency to suicide. For example, some suggest that an introvert (Myers Briggs definition) may be more likely to be a 'cat person', while an extrovert is more likely to be a dog person. In the same pattern, Introverted, or inward focused individuals may also be more prone to depression and suicide than an outward focused extrovert. All they can really say is that there is a 'correlation' or statistically significant relationship between toxoplasmosis infections and increased risk of suicide. They cannot necessarily show that it causes the increased risk. Both could be caused, for example, by a person's personality type being prone to prefer cats and being prone to higher rates of depression and suicide.
And don't forget that the study fails to consider that more women than men own cats.
and most people that own cats are losers, so they kill themselves more often naturally
Lol...this is the best article ever!
So being a crazy cat lady is a scientific fact, if kitty litter turns women suicidal!
At least there's a link if the cat lady snorts or eats the used kitty litter.
I think these doctors are missing the forest in the trees. Many people have cats for companionship because they're lonely. Extreme loneliness/depression would probably be more of a cause of the suicide attempts.The article does not explore the possibility of correlation whatsoever. Grade: F
What nonsense, Andrew. You are correlating "lonliness" with cat ownership and carrying on the myth and stereotype that "lonely [old] ladies" have cats. Do people own dogs because they are "lonely"? wanting companionship does not necessarily mean you are lonely. You are suggesting that suicide is more prevelant in lonely cat owners and implying , as the article foolishly concludes, that women are more likely going to commit suicide BECAUSE they own cats and BECAUSE they are "lonely".
I actually think the correlation of those facts are valid. Having a cat says something about a person. More than just, "hey I have a cat". I'm not going to posit what having a cat might mean but it definitely speaks to the persons character on some level.
The two problems I have with all of this is:
1. Out of all the women who have cats, what fraction are committing suicide? Of those, what percentage has the active infection? I think that number is alarmingly small... which begs the question, "are we really on to anything at all?"
2. Since we're finding the corpse of this person, it would make sense for the body to not be able to fight the infection as well as it did when alive and provide a false positive of sorts, no?
Well i know my furry little guy keeps me level.Some articles are just crazy attempts to stir up paranoia or market some new "wonder drug" by the pharmaceutical companies.
I second the opinion of the the veterinarian who posted about the absolute irresponsibility of this article. As a licensed veterinarian who did research on apicomplexam protozoan parasites (including Toxoplasma gondii) in graduate school, there is NO, I repeat NO evidence that any person has EVER become infected with T. gondii from the cat litter. The primary method of infection is from the consumption of undercooked meat which contains cysts of the parasite which will develop in your body once consumed. The people of France have very high seroprevalence rates for T. gondii due to their comsumption of rare (or raw) meats. Shame on CNN for posting this article.
No....shame on the researcher.....a psychiatrist......for coming to such ridiculous conclusions based on a false premise. Cnn is not to blame......I am glad they exposed this nonsense and allowing us to draw our own conclusions.
Wait, you mean to say that there is no route of infection from cats to people? As a vet I'm surprised that you would say this. The infection route is obvious considering that cats *stand* in their own feces.
Cats sense inner loneliness and continue to reject their owners. Cats lead to suicide.
cats do NOT lead to suicide. cats kill you in your sleep and make it LOOK like suicide!
BF: Sometimes they try to frame the dog instead.
@Bonafied Okay, I'm a cat lover (mom to 3) and that made me actually LOL.
AGREED!
I own a cat and this really scares me.
Dan
wrote:
"I own a cat and this really scares me".
Dan, if this scares you then I suggest you are not intelligent enough to own a cat.
I can understand dealing with a lot of dirty cat litter & living with it making someone suicidal, on the other hand it seems more reasonable to assume that a depressed person would be less diligent about hygiene and be more likely to get infected.
Fatuous comment
question: do people NOT wash their hands after cleaning the kitty litter box? because, if they do, ewwwwww.
Obviously, the dumb responses on this comment board are by the people who have never owned a cat. First of all, no one picks out the cat's urine and feces by hand.....they use a scoop. Clean the scoop handle and your fine. This article is doing nothing but reinforcing the ridiculous views of all the cat haters in the world.
Since there's so much talk that society should penalize those who make unhealthy lifestyle choices such as smoking, over-eating, lack of exercise, etc., it is only right that cat ownership should similarly be penalized for the negative health effects experienced by the owners and the many allergy related symptoms forced upon those unwillingly exposed to second-hand cat dander. Bring on the Cat Tax. Or is it a penalty? Or a tax?
You, Robin Jones, are an IDIOT! Have a nice day! : )
Is that you Mr. Bloomberg?
What a uncompassionate moron
Oh, here comes another one! Let's outlaw everything that WE think is bad and tell everybody else "what they can eat, drink, own, and buy and where they can stand, sit, stink, pee, poop and what they can say, write, read, and protest and who they should hate, should like, can like, can associate with, and must not communicate with!" HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!
The only "health effects" of owning a cat are that they lower your blood pressure when petting them.
There is no such thing as "second hand dander", fool. The dander (skin flaking) on the cat is clinging to it's fur when it sheds.....thus it is "first hand dander" and NOT EVERYONE is allergic to it, and NOT EVERY CAT sheds it.
I find that most cat HATERS (how does one "hate" any animal?) claim to be allergic and that is just an excuse because it is really "hatred" of cats they experience just because cats don't suck up to you like dogs. Cats happen to be the cleanist animals on earth. YOUR SALIVA has more germs in it than theirs. Cats are definitely better and cleaner than humans.
For those of you who were unable to detect the facetious tone of the Robin's comment, it is important to consider that the inability to recognize sarcasm is an early sign of dementia.
Considering I've never known a dog that didn't eat cat poop, can it get transmitted to dogs and then to humans?
Probably.
Nooo....cats and dogs are two different animals stuuupid
The mere act of dealing with cat litter, never mind any disease, is enough to cause suicidal thinking.
Really no different than caring for any helpless being: infants, elderly. In case nobody told you, everybody poops! You always wash your hands. Cats would be independant if we hadn't domesticated them and taught them to live inside. In today's world it's the only way to keep them safe. I have had cats and dogs all my life. All but one dog a rescue. They are company if lonely, household joy in a family, and teach children compassion and caring. I've never had only one of either...for their companionship I make sure there is a pair. And yes, I've successfully mixed dogs and cats and they have loved each other, cuddled and slept together. When we had our first child we had four cats. Not one of them tried to smother him! Cats naturally cuddle up to warmth to sleep and infants cannot reposition easily, so that's where that false tale got started. I just closed his door and kept the monitor on when he was a baby. As far as the litter boxes, I kept them in the laundry room and my husband made a gate of thin plywood with a hole cut in it just large enough for the cats to pass through, so my son would not discover the joys of playing in it. If you love them, you will find a way.
Haven't we been familiar with the behavioral changes caused by toxoplasmosis for a good 10 years now?
There's some new stuff in the last two or three years from Eastern Europe.
What about if you're a dog, cat, horse and hippopotamus person? Or would be given the chance. Tee hee. I've been infected with lots of microbes from gardening and going barefoot as a kid. Maybe it can build up one's immune system.
Well I do know that if you date a woman, over thirty, who has never had children and she has at least two cats and no dogs the odds are that this lady is sort of "crazy". So to me this article has some merit.
If any woman is over 30 and not married it is probably because she has met nothing but idiots like you so far.
Crazy cat ladies are more likely to commit suicide? Shocker...
What is the cure for this?
There are medications that can treat toxoplasmosis. It's just that most people don't show symptoms and therefore are completely unaware they have it.
There is no cure for stupidity.
Antibiotics!
There was that one time my cat stank up the place so bad I thought I would have to kill myself.
No, this just means that a lot of depressed, lonely people have cats.
I always loved the email sent around about the dog's diary/cat's diary. So funny and true.
If you haven't read it you must – - -
http://www.all-creatures.org/humor/dogcatdiary.html
It's my favorite thing!
When a mouse gets toxo, he starts to feel tough and sharp, and cats start to smell less threatening. Pretty soon the mouse walks right up to a cat and becomes dinner. There's evidence that humans get it and become careless and nonchalant, often getting run over by cars or having accidents. Get tested and on some antibiotics if this sounds like you . . .
Or maybe suicidal schizophrenics are more likely to be cat owners than the rest of the population.
What a freakin stupid story. Next we will hear people who own dogs are meaner than people who own cats.
Cat Scratch Fever.....Da..Da...Da
Cat Scratch Fever..Da..Da..Da..Da
Tea Bag Loser Da Da Da
Tea Bag Loser Da Da Da Da
Yeah, that was before I lost my mind. Anybody seen it?
Stinky cat litter or undercooked pork, enough to drive anyond nuts.
The real reason kitty litter increases the risk of suicide is because most people would rather kill themselves than have to scoop cat poop out of a pan.
As opposed to picking up chunks of crap off the sidewalk, in public, left by dogs... that's much better.
Louis Wain
Loved cats, not crazy now was he?
I'm going to go with "yes."
So...it's the cat litter which makes all these cat women crazy...who knew?
Did they normalize for the high rate of depression amongst pathetic older single cat ladies? Because that could really effect the outcomes here.
It doesn't even indicate that they differentiated animal hoarders from cat owners.
Focus, dude, it's the toxoplasmosis, not the clay litter or the cats.
By far this is one of the most ridiculous and worthless news stories ever.Come on main stream media there is nothing going on in the world more worthy of your time ? What next babies feces will cause suicide too ? I am so sick of this worthless junk.
That could explain why my cat jumped off of the balcony one day. 'Course she could have just been going after a bird, I don't know. There was no note left behind.
This is really bad news for used kitty litter addicts who take it intravenously!
They are confusing this with cat lady syndrome.
This is a very irresponsible and insensitive article. You can get toxo through many different ways and as I understand and from a relative that had it the biggest issue lies within pregnant women. Possibly this can be directly related to a hormonal inbalance...I'm no doctor but the fact is that this article is aluding to the fact that most likely the cat litter is to be the culprit. For those out there that are very gullible – KNOW YOUR FACTS before you even DARE to consider dumping your cat. Ask your vets, ask your doctors.... these are truly great animals..... As for CNN....really...REALLY??
This is ridiculously bad research – as bad as the Wakefield paper if not worse – they didn't even attempt to rule out pre-existing psychological factors! What if all of these women had HPV too? Maybe that was the cause of their suicidal tendencies? Maybe it was the combination of HPV and the T. gondii parasite??!! This is junk science and should never be published.
It really angers me that this stephanie smith from CNN who wrote this artical does not even post an EMail address. Steph if you want to post yellow jounalism articals let us tell you privately what we think of you HACK ! CNN get real-
Post your own email address, Jim, and let her let you know what she thinks. Do you not believe in toxo or something?
Irresponsible pet owners will now cite *this* misleading article as a bogus reason to dump their cats into local shelters. Don't do it! This article is completely misleading. Shame on you, CNN.
This story fits into the CNN editorial model perfectly.
Poor science that will lead to sever overreactions by an oversensitive public. Bad article CNN
No, no, no. The result of suicide among cat owners comes from a lonely void that was unsuccessfully fillled by buying a lot of cats as replacements to friends in a last-resort scenario. Ban cats nation-wide, they are depressing and cannot truly compensate for one's lack of social skills. The feline epidemic is amongst us, and I am glad its finally getting some recognition. End cats – and End Old Crazy Cat Ladies!!
Maybe we should end you instead.
Hey! Old Crazy Cat Ladies ROCK! At least they care enough to take in all the feral cats people like you kick to the curb.
If you believe that, hang yourself. Geez. What a waste of space. Try reading the article?
My three kitties could carry bubonic plague and U could be so allergic that I had to mainline Claritin, and I would never get rid of them. I have severe depression. I am more likely to commit suicide because I didn't have a cat than I am to do it because I scooped t!urds out of their litter box.
For the last time, it's having toxoplasmosis that's the risk, not cats, read the article, and despite what 'veternarian' claims, you can catch it from litter boxes if you don't wash afterwards.
Maybe ladies who are depressed are more likely to have cats?
I own dogs and cats and horses. I wonder what that says about me?
Actually, this was a very helpful article. It reminded me that I need to change the litterbox...
testing
The vets posting must be thinking of trichinella which causes trichinosis not toxoplasmosis. Trichinosis comes from eating undercooked pork. Toxoplasma comes from cat litter. Are you real vets or animal rights people?
On the internet, everyone is a veternarian.
Unless of course, the pig had eaten a mouse or rat.
T. gondii infections have the ability to change the behavior of rats and mice, making them drawn to, rather than fearful of, the scent of cats. This effect is advantageous to the parasite, which will be able to sexually reproduce if its host is eaten by a cat.[12] The infection is widespread in the brain, with more cysts targeting the parts of the brain corresponding to fear. The widespread nature of the infection causes many previously unnoticed symptoms in the rats.[13]
There's an Eastern European researcher who found his own behavior changed for the better after his toxo was cured. He thinks toxo is hijacking our brains and making us better prey.
What a load of crap.
Alas, no.
The prevalence of human infection by Toxoplasma varies greatly between countries. Factors that influence infection rates include diet (prevalence is possibly higher where there is a preference for less-cooked meat) and proximity to cats.[18]
The standard treatment for toxoplasmosis is pyrimethamine, but most healthy people in
There is another recent study that found people who owned cats generally had lower blood pressure than those who did not own them, because of the effect of the cat purring when sitting with their owners. My cat's purring always makes me feel good and relaxed – not depressed. Well, except occasionally when I've had an extremely maddening incident at work and he's been curled up sleeping in the A/C out of the heat all day...