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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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Get a behind-the-scenes look at the latest stories from CNN Chief Medical Correspondent, Dr. Sanjay Gupta, Senior Medical Correspondent Elizabeth Cohen and the CNN Medical Unit producers. They'll share news and views on health and medical trends - info that will help you take better care of yourself and the people you love. Recent Comments
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I am utterly sick of articles about health that say "this May cause this," or "this Might cause this"... not proven,
probably revoked or dismissed by the next month... Something's good for you, then it's bad for you.
Let's hope cat owners dismiss this as quickly as they read it. We know it's stupid and careless. CNN is a little
too quick to jump on to these passing statements, making them more important than warranted.
The science cited in this article is sound – your scientific illiteracy poses a much greater risk to your health and the health of others than CNN's coverage of the findings regarding toxoplasmosis.
This is a positive correlation – the scientists did not write the article:
"women infected with T. gondii had one-and-a-half times higher risk of attempting suicide when compared with women with no infection.'
I thought this was a well done article. It was balanced, relatively complete and, most importantly. interesting. It was not alarmist or misleading. We don't have to mobilize or lobby or legislate. We can just learn.
Deadly bacteria may be lurking somewhere in your kitchen! All this and more... at 11.
In so many ways I agree with you, and hopefully a 'reasonable' person, i.e. cat owner, won't take this preliminary info to mean we should get rid of our pets. Our pets have been proven to be positive to our mental health. But, in a world where mental health issues are behind crime and violence, it would be 'ideal' to identify every contributor to these issues. Hopefully, then we would be much closer to real cures to some of the worst problems that we as a society face.
I have a very dear friend who is schizophrenic, my late husband suffered from a variety of mental health issues, and honestly, if I could have given any part of myself to cure, or even just ease their symptoms, I would have and would still in a heart beat. We now know, from AIDS studies, that viruses and bacteria, are not one time infections and can have later, catastrophic effects in our lives. I would love to see many more of these studies and see how the results pan out.
Totally agree–since when is a 20-year old study reported as news?? What's the matter, CNN...nothing else of interest going on in the world in 2012??
I am sick of articles like that too. However the Economist did an article on this a few months back. The focus of that study however was a correlation between people with this infection and their being in car accidents.
That study noticed that even though the prevalence in the population is only a third, the presence in those involved in car accidents is over two thirds (if I remember correctly).
Correlation does not imply causation.
People with larger headstones lived longer lives. Should we all go out and buy big headstones? Of course not. People who can afford big headstones probably had better health during their lives due to being able to afford good nutrition and medical care.
So the fact that toxoplasmosis was found in these women doesn't automatically mean there's a link to their suicides. Could it be that depressed people are more likely to have pets because they're comforting? This is way too complex an issue to be covered in such a brief article. And the few reassuring words at the end of the story aren't enough to undue all the alarmist stuff at the beginning.
In a related story- women who own cats are three times as likely to commit suicide however sniffing kitty litter reduces that rate by 50%
It's amazing how little some people know about the scientific process.
The science is sound; it's the journalism that's poor. Because cats shed the parasite's eggs only a few days out of their entire lifetimes, it's extremely rare to contract Toxoplasma gondii infection from cat feces. It's much more common to contract the infection from mishandling raw meat and failure to wash hands, dishes and countertops after food preparation. This bad reporting does a great disservice to people who could benefit from cat ownership. Studies have shown that owning a cat or a dog is good for a child's self-esteem and lowers our blood pressure. It also does a disservice to people most susceptible to toxoplasmosis infection: pregnant women and immune-compromised people. If suicide is linked to the T. gondii parasite, people need to know the facts and how best to avoid infection, not be misled by sensationalism.
I knew it. Cats have found a way to kill us off.
It was all a matter of time until their plan came to fruition.
This does not prove cause and effect, it is just a positive correlation. My first guess would be that schizophrenic and suicidal people are much more likely than others to keep cats as pets
And they're coming for you......
Cats rule. Dogs drool.
They were aiming for the dogs. Cats can't operate can openers. They need us.
This explains the disquieting, watchful look my cat gives as I naively change the litter box.
No worries...just go back to sleep now...purr purr
Finally less cat ladies
Careful when you "grill", it comes from handling raw meat and perhaps there will eventually be fewer idiots like you!
Toxoplasma gondii is highly prevalent in soil and contaminated water (runoff from contaminated soil). Lots and lots of wild animals naturally harbor T. gondii and blokes like Craig who maybe like to dig around in the dirt and then not wash his hands before scratching an itch around his mouth or eyes or handling his bare johnson will pick it up too. 1/3 of the human population (men and women) have T. gondii for life (once you get it, you always have it) so the idea of selectively eliminating women who choose cats over idiot men for company simply doesn't fly. Mind your manners, Craig, and maybe a woman might choose you for company.
Even worse for humans and the environment is dog feces, which results in more and worse human illnesses. Dog feces also is not contained in a box but spread by multiple canines throughout every neighborhood, into soil and groundwater: Toxicarias, e. coli, fecal coliform bacteria, salmonella and giardia.
However, the greatest threat to women's sanity will always be men and children.
You say that like women and children aren't threats to men's sanity? Pot, meet kettle.
Studies have also shown behavioral changes in humans, including lower reaction times and a sixfold increased risk of traffic accidents among infected, RhD-negative males] as well as links to schizophrenia including hallucinations and reckless behavior.
Sounds more like a bad dose of LSD to me.
Now I understand why my own cat killed herself.
This was also on my morning news show. What a stupid, sensationalized article and if I were the owner of a cat litter company I would be suiing! It's toxoplasmosis and nothing new. Wear plastic gloves when emptying the cat box and there will be no danger. It comes from handling (or eating) raw meat and besides giving to yourself when preparing food, you could get it from your dog same as the cat. You can also get it from shaking hands with a butcher! Geesh! What a load of hooey for the stupid!
Perhaps the suicide angle comes from extremely lonely people that only have cats for companionship? I would put my money on that one, not the stupid, ubiquitous disease!
I agree. I think this causitive effect between kitty litter and suicide is ridiculous. More is the case that lonely people (potentially with cats as their only companionship) with other (bigger) psychological issues are already prone to suicide.
I don't see a cause of action for any cat litter companies, they never lie so they're not liable for anything
Loneliest and most socially disconnected people have dogs, which are highly controllable and thus preferred by alienated, sad humans. Spend a couple of days in Washington, DC (i.e., Dog City) or NYC or even Paris and you'll completely grasp that mental health and dogs do not go together. However, cat people generally have a good sense of humor, understand that control is an illusion and that bribing a creature with bacon is not synonymous with love. The best and brightest scientists, philosophers and writers throughout time have all been cat people.
What a stupid comment, Perennial Knucklehead.
The most common method of contracting T. gondii is by eating raw meat, not by eating cat feces. More complete info on Toxoplasmosis is available at http://www.veterinarypartner.com/Content.plx?P=A&S=0&C=0&A=571
Exactly, and what about all the poo eating dogs out there? They aren't particular if it's their own or from another species. And then people let them lick their babies' faces – how cute!
P.S. You can get it from just handling raw meat. The disease is often found in butchers.
Could it be that cat ladies are just plain crazy and more apt at taking themselves out of the gene pool?
I'm going to have to agree with Smarty on this one
More women attempt suicide but more men complete it. Guess that blows your "crazy cat lady" hypothesis. Men and women have about equal rates of T. gondii infection. Men like to use guns and hanging or jumping (highly effective) while women like to use poisons, which are less reliable at causing death.
Anyone woman would be crazy to hang out with the likes of you....don't blame cats....it's probably you and other men who are ***holes..
More women attempt it, but more men complete it. I learned in psychology that this is stemmed from a pseudo-macho impulse of not wussing out. Or being driven insane by women.
But more women attempt probably from being crazy catladies. =D
Anderson Cooper discovered the connection when bringing his kitty's litter box out of the closet.
I would be a lot more worried about getting it from eating a "rare" (euphemism for raw with the sides slightly browned) steak in a restaurant! All my meat is cooked well done to prevent disease for just this very reason. Even if the cattle are grass fed instead of crammed together in a lot, when they are sent to the redering plant to be killed, they still end up in the same filthy conditions being forced to sleep and lie in mountains of poo until their turn comes up for the stun gun.
Guess what? The skin is a digestive organ, the biggest one of the body. The cattle are disesting all that poo right before they are killed and it ends up on your plate. Think about that next time you are ordering your steak rare or even medium!
Depressed women get cats to make themselves feel better. Cats don't cure depression so depressed women eventually commit suicide. Cat box gives them toxoplasmosis before they die. The end.
Maybe women with schizophrenia and other issues tend to be without a mate and get a cat for that reason. It could be that they get schizophrenia, then get the cat, then get the T. gondii.
Die Sporentierchen, die zur Toxoplasmose führen, hat der Mensch schon im Körper, die ihrerseits nur dann aktiv werden, wenn der Körper geschwächt und das Immunsystem deutlich heruntergefahren ist. Toxoplasmose holt sich niemand über die Katzentoilette, das ist völliger Blödsinn.
--------------------------------------------------
The person has the spore little animals who lead to the Toxoplasmose already in the body which become active for their part only if the body has clearly gone down weakly and the immune system. Toxoplasmose nobody gets about the cat's toilet, this is a complete nonsense.
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The aricle doesn't mention link between the litter and T. Gondii. Is this T Gondii in clean litter, dirty litter???? How does it get from the litter into your system? What the heck CNN. What does T. Gondii and kitty litter have to do with each other??
But then... cat people are a lonely and neurotic lot, imagining that cats give them the love they cannot find anywhere else. Cats are symptoms of suicidal thoughts.
Take your meds...
And if you had a brain, you'd be dangerous.
I wonder how many more Cats will be added to the homeless Population because of this half baked story.
What a pretty cat in the photo!
I'm not surprised. You ever seen how most cat's treat people? They're trying to outdo humans at the top of the food chain. And they made lolcats to distract us from their evil plans.
Cats are very good judges of people. I've had cats as pets since I was a kid. If my current cat doesn't like someone, he's usually got good reason. He separates the ***holes from the rest and makes my life easy.
Hey Boo? Get a sense of humor.
This type of misinformation about T. gondii always irks me. You are much more likely to contract toxoplasmosis from handling raw meat or from gardening than from a cat litterbox. Cats only shed T. gondii for a few days out of their entire lifespans, so the chances of ingesting the oocysts from their feces are extremely slim. To get T. gondii from a cat litterbox, you literally would have to touch their feces during that time out of their entire lives, then handle food without washing your hands. That's disgusting and anyone with common sense would not do that. Cats get a bad rap because the entire truth about T. gondii often is not known or told. Read Cat Fancy magazine or go to CatChannel.com for factual information about cats. I've served as editor of the publication for more than nine years.
Couldn't it be just as likely that women that are more inclined to be suicidal/depressed have cats as their main companion and that a significant portion of those owners also have a litter box?
It could not possibly be that crazy cat people are predisposed to suicide. No way. They are all so well balanced.
This article brings up a very real point that medical science is discovering across many fronts: infectious diseases and yes, even sometimes the vaccines that introduce these infectious diseases into the body "safely," can be to blame for a whole array of mental conditions. Lyme disease, influenza, Mycoplasma Pneumonia, Strep (Google "PANDAS Strep"), Staph, and the kitty litter box invader can all result in sequelae such as OCD, ADHD, neurological tics, Tourette's, aggression, impulsivity, depression, and the list goes on and on. We are soon to witness a shift between medical docs passing these patients off to psychotherapists, to antibody bloodwork and applicable medical treatment (not anti-psychotics, but anti-microbials, antibiotics, etc) and the curing of patients. If you or your child suddenly experiences any of these psych symptoms, do not head down the psychotherapy/pscyh drugs road until you have found a good doc who will rule out that it is of an infectious cause. My own child is a success story due to this approach.
Correlation vs. causation. It could just as easily be that cat ladies kill themselves once they realize they're cat ladies.
no no no. This is far too scientific. Cat owners are just sad, lonely people who are more likely to attempt suicide. True fact
You wrote it better then I ever could.
Well said.
Bacteria,yea,right,look up from the microscope sometimes ,scientists.
Cats and cat people rule, and only very sad people normally generalize about other people's problems... It makes them feel better inside their own misery caused by whatever:-).
I'd rather spend time with a cat than an ***hole like you.
A small subset of suicides is probably tied to reading this article.
If you actually read the study, actually just the abstract, you'll see that the confidence intervals on the incidence of suicide are very large, so much so that there is a good chance >5% that the results are not significant at all, there is a good chance that T Gondii was simply not a factor at all but a random unrelated factor. It is even possible that T Gondii prevents suicide to some degree given the data at hand. These results are interesting and I hope that someone takes on a larger study, but it's premature to report it without the caveat of its very high statistical uncertainty.
So is it the fresh kitty litter or the used kitty litter folks are sniffing?
Now I know that my regal cat truly loves me. She would never use her soiled litter box for the second time so it's perfectly clean – she has one on the balcony and one hidden in the bathroom. When I read that people clean lboxes ONCE A WEEK or so I want to lock them up in that litter box for another week. I can believe that such owners might be carrying no less diseases than possums... Poor cats have nothing to do with it except for getting infected and sick for obvious reasons. Stop flushing your own toilet for a week and we'll see...
You sound like you lead a sad life.
Scott Pilgrim....no, you're the pathetic one....a loser to say the very least....this article is about cats.....it's not like she's waxing poetic about her cats.
Scott Pilgrim – Not really – when I'm in Paris, Rome or Cancun, I can afford to hire a cat nanny for daily visits.
Ouch, I seem to have hit a nerve. Yes, you sound really happy being a slave to an animal much smaller than you and having to hire a nanny to watch it while you go on vacation. More money in my pocket while I'm in Cancun.
so we won't see cat woman any time soon at the movies?
That explains my my cat is nuts.
does not surprise me, cats are nothing more than over grown rats, and after you have left home they will walk all over your kitchen counter and tables., they kill beautiful song birds, catch mice and bring them into your home.
I've seen folks let there cats walk around on kitchen counters and tables, nuff said.
Dog eat their feces and that of every other dog they can nose around to find, then lick your face and hands ... after you stick your face all over his. 'Nuff said.
And yet a dog's mouth is cleaner than yours.
So? Do you think your kids bring different germs to your house from a football field and then jump to a cookie jar or a fridge before you remind them of washing their hands? Get a tin cap.
Shame on you Dr. Gupta. Shame on you for not balancing this article towards research and facts and instead choosing to take the cheap sensational route. As a veterinarian I cringe when articles like this come out, because I am left to deal with the panicked fall out from your unresearched biased article.
Did you know that there are areas where the seroprevalence of this bug reaches nearly 100%? Did you know that seroprevalence numbers in the United States have been reported as high as 50%?
Did you know there is no strong correlation between cat ownership and toxoplasmosis? In fact, environmental (soil) contamination is a very prevalent mode of transmission. In fact it is this organisms preference for warm moist soil that explains its high prevalence in those climates- not an overpopulation of cats.
I don't really think you bother to even look up basic background information.
Shame on your for not at least contacting a veterinarian to discuss the actual transmission of this parasite and the common sense precautions that can be taken. Did you know that if you clean your cats litter box daily the chance of getting this from your cat is almost zero? The parasite takes a day to become infective. Clearly you didn't know that because you didn't do your homework. I expect more from an M.D.
@ Scary Carrie, did you know you're a crazy cat woman??? No you didn't bc you failed to look in the mirror? Didn't you? A veterinary neurologist cat woman??? Oh vey what a loon!!!
Um, Irving, you didn't just call a *veterinarian* an animal lover, did you?
@irving.. If being an animal lover and a medical professional that spent 12 years training to take care of our pets makes me "crazy" then fit me for my straight jacket. It's hard to feel insulted by someone who can't even type full sentences in English.
I haven't been called "Scary Carrie" since grade school. Got to love internet trolls.
Research takes time and may not lead to additional "clicks" whereas sensationalist headlines draw us in like cats to a can opener (or in my house, a deli bag)!
Thanks for throwing the BS flag – cats have been getting blamed for things for too long. Do not count on "big media" to do anything to dispel the myths...
Bravo, Dr. Jurney! The actual study "Toxoplasma gondii Infection and Self-directed Violence in Mothers," published in Arch Gen Psychiatry, shows the link between the infection and psychological issues and notes that cat litterboxes are only one possible source of infection. Knowing that cats only shed T.gondii eggs in their feces for a few days out of their entire lifetimes, I can add that it is a rare source of infection. It is much more common to contract the infection from handling raw meat that splashes onto our kitchen countertops. This CNN.com story is an example of the poor journalism you find online, which does a great deal of harm, not only to cats, but to the people it pretends to protect. To protect people from toxoplasmosis, report on the more common causes of infection: handling raw meat and not washing hands and other kitchen items that come into contact with raw meat. After gardening or cleaning the litterbox, wash your hands with warm soapy water. It's really that simple.
Thank you, Dr. Jurney.
The story is about an association, they like to call it a link, and in no way shape or form comes close to being a cause and effect. This is a nascent area of study and psychiatrists may not be the best people to play epidemiologist.
My cats arent going anywhere. This is junk science, unproven theory & irresponsible journalism to even publish it until further proof exists.
I remember a time when people considered the hypothesis that ulcers and heart disease might be related to bacteria to be complete HOGWASH. Now, it's well known that bacteria causing gingivitis might actually contribute to heart disease and that bacteria do absolutely contribute to ulcers. So let's not be too quick to laugh about this.
Louis Pasteur, who was not exactly a slouch when it came to understanding disease, once proposed that all human illness is tied to bacteria and viruses. Maybe he was right.
Happy birthday honey! Here's your kitty.
They say the correlation is for women. Does that mean no correlation was found for men?
What about the possibility of another factor? Perhaps dog owners as opposed to cat owners have a lower risk of suicide, not because of this toxin, but because having a dog means having to walk a dog, therefore means getting exercise and increasing endorphins. What about the tendencies and stereotypical profiles of cat people – do they tend to be more introverted? Do they tend to be more indoorsy? Articles like this fail to mention the possible third or fourth factors, and link improbable causes to slippery-slope effects. It's like making the claim, "when ice cream sales increase, so do deaths by drowning." Okay, but increased ice cream sales don't cause drowning... ice cream sales go up in the heat, as do activities in and near the water. The heat is the additional factor. What is the additional factor here? How about likelihood of experiencing severe depression or having effective coping mechanisms? I don't know enough about this subject, and I don't feel like this article makes enough of a case, for us to buy into this possibility.
Lindsay ...we can go ahead and schedule that intervention today.
FYI, Google is your friend: toxicarias.
What came first, the depression or the litter? Maybe depressed people are more apt to get cats in an attempt to fill voids in their lives.
Shoes may cause suicide. Many of the women committing suicide also had shoes on them, in some cases, closets stuffed full of shoes.
LOL. . .to all the 'cat lady' haters out there. I have a feeling, although neither the article nor the study indicate the reason that women are identified here, it is far more likely that a woman would have the info regarding toxoplasmosis in her medical record than a guy because it is a standard pre natal blood test. It has been know for years that an active T. gondii infection during pregnancy can have catastrophic effects on the developing fetus, so this study makes a lot of sense.
I agree with the poster who stated it is not about cat litter. T. gondii would likely be present in USED cat litter, not new litter so it is really about our pets, and yes, I have multiple cats, and prior to having them, I was found to have had antibodies to toxoplasmosis.
We should remember that this infection can be acquired in a number of ways, gardening, kids playing in soil where the organism is living, yes, the cat's dirty litter, but also raw meat, as we cook or eating undercooked meats. We also know that retroviruses and even a long standing strep throat can cause many problems much later in our lives.
So....cat people are more depressed?
This is a perfect example of the worst kind of science; a statistical correlation that immediately gets interpreted as fact, when it may just be a coincidence, or a flawed study design.
For one thing, what happens to men with toxoplasmosis infections? Does the same correlation apply? How about women with depression whose cats don't have active toxo infections – how do we explain that sub-set of women's problems with depression if there is no toxo?
And why haven't they asked some obvious questions: is it possible that women already pre-disposed to depression and suicidal thoughts are more likely to get cats as pets? Maybe there is some sort of subtle chemical in the actual kitty litter? Have we looked at people with toxo infections they didn't get from cats – do these people have high rates of depression and suicidal thoughts?
I think publishing just the conclusions of these studies without good old fashioned scientific skepticism does more harm than good.
http://www.Hear-The-Truth.com
I have cats and dogs both, what does that make me? And I am a professional who is very involved in my community. This is a stupid article, something different is going to kill us every day.
Oh, this is just stupid
Questions: How many cat hoarders are female? Hoarding is a mental health issue. How many of the hoarders have a compromised immune system? Is this a path research could follow with the hope of helping cat hoarders?
What percentage of cat rescue organizations are run and staffed by females? Is there any connection here?
(I'm male and help run a cat rescue shelter. The only males involve with cat and dog rescue operations that I run into are there for the dogs or a are there because their wife is involved.)
Save America....buy a cat for a Liberal near you!
I guess we should call it 'Crazy Cat Lady Disease'...