'Cat Ladies' at Higher Risk for Suicide?
Women infected with a common cat parasite are more likely to have a mental illness or change in personality, which could lead to a higher chance of committing suicide, a new study has claimed.
The study was published online in the Archives of General Psychiatry and the findings come from records of more than 45,000 Danish women who gave birth between May 15, 1992, and January 15, 1995.
Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine tested the women's children for evidence of Toxoplasma gondii, also known as T. gondii, which is a parasite commonly found in feline feces.
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Newborns do not produce antibodies for T. gondii so antibodies found in newborns could only have been passed from an infected mother. Researchers then compared infection rates among those women to suicide rates recorded in the Danish health registry. They also examined the mental health registry to determine if any of those women had been diagnosed with any type of mental illness.
Persons infected with Toxoplasmosis have been linked to various mental illnesses such as schizophrenia, and changes in behavior.
"We can't say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves, but we did find a predictive association between the infection and suicide attempts later in life that warrants additional studies," Teodor Postolache, study's senior author, told The Telegraph.
Albert Reece, vice president of medical affairs at the University of Maryland, explained that while most people do not realize they are infected with T. gondii it still poses a major health problem for unknowing carriers around the world.
"Suicide is a critically important mental health issue. About one million people commit suicide and another 10 million-attempt suicide worldwide each year. We hope that this type of research will one day help us find ways to save many lives that now end prematurely in suicide," Reece said.
