5 ms·
Toxoplasmosis is naturally contracted from cat exposure and care. Anecdotally I see mentally ill people as being drawn to cat ownership for their personal comf
by ajmarcic 9y ago
Toxoplasmosis is naturally contracted from cat exposure and care.
Anecdotally I see mentally ill people as being drawn to cat ownership for their personal comfort and fascination. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wain https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Wain
It is a difficult leap to go from saying "people with certain mental illnesses own cats, and thus are likely to have TP" to "TP causes mental illness".
If we are to believe cat owners are more likely to have mental illness, a correlation of mental illness and TP serum positivity follows naturally.
- nerpderp83 9y agoAre you saying people with mental illness seek comfort via pets (cats). Shouldn't we see an affinity for other social pets besides cats?
- shubb 9y agoYou could probably answer this question using this resource [1]. However, someone used it to show no associations between psychotic episodes (specifically) AFTER controlling for other factors (that are associated with cat ownership)[2]. Using the adjustments they made, I could wildly speculate that possibly dog owners will be less likely than cat owners to have mental illness, because dogs require a certain amount of wealth, living space, etc - and the lack of these things is associated both with cat ownership and mental illness, maybe, just not in rural areas... [1]http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/access/ http://www.bristol.ac.uk/alspac/researchers/access/ [2]https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medicine/article/curiosity-killed-the-cat-no-evidence-of-an-association-between-cat-ownership-and-psychotic-symptoms-at-ages-13-and-18-years-in-a-uk-general-population-cohort/75C9A48B669BE36E947AFB0BC5CB00CA/core-reader https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/psychological-medici...