17 ms·

Increased risk of traffic accidents in subjects with latent toxoplasmosis (2002)

101 points by ansaso 5y ago

throwthere 5y ago
As interesting as this is, it's kind of got my spidy-sense tingling. How many non-significant outcomes did test and not publish before seeing traffic accidents? The perfect dose-dependence gives more credence (increasing odds ratio at increasing titers), although the sample size is small.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  Yes, the dose-response is the interesting bit, and strong indication for causation. Not an expert so don't know how well we understand the mechanism of action, which is crucial.
  - hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
    The paper states high up that it's been well studied that Toxoplasmosis infection increases reaction time - this study was basically just showing that that laboratory-viewed metric has real-world consequences. As far as mechanism of action, T. gondii infects both neurons in the brain and glial cells.
    - smogcutter 5y ago
      *decreases reaction time
      - nahnahno 5y ago
        Increases reaction times is right == slows reaction
bmeski 5y ago
So cat people can’t drive well? We’ve always known this.
- kennywinker 5y ago
  I think you're going for a glib lil' fun quip, but that really just sounds like sexism one-step-removed to me. The stereotype of the cat lady, mixed in with the stereotype of women being bad drivers. Unless there's some stereotype about men who like cats I'm not aware of?
  - jpxw 5y ago
    Thank god the joke police have arrived to ensure that nobody is entertained inappropriately. Phew, that was a close one.
    - kennywinker 5y ago
      Serious question: if my reply hadn’t been there when you arrived would you have been entertained? If so - what was entertaining about the comment
      - black_niggers 5y ago
        kill urself f@ggot
      - jpxw 5y ago
        It was a glib little quip, as you mentioned. That was the entertaining part. Edit: I’ve just noticed a particularly vile and undeserved comment in reply to you, and to some extent feel responsibility, as it’s part of a comment chain I created. I hope the mods will take action and ban whoever made this comment, although by the looks it’s a burner account. It’s quite jarring to see something like that on HN.
        kodah 5y ago
        Use the flag feature. If enough people flag it the comment disappears. That's what I did, downvote and flag all comments that don't meet the guidelines for participating in HN.
        5y ago
JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
Now I need Progressive to pay for a round of pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine for me.
- rini17 5y ago
  Latent toxoplasmosis is literally insidious, hidden inside body fat cells where antibiotics won't reach and only occasionally it gets out to infect more cells. So one round is not enough, you have to take antibiotics for years until all the infected cells die.
  - eurasiantiger 5y ago
    Hmm. I wonder if there is an antibiotic prodrug that would mimic glucose enough for it to be recognised by beta cells, get metabolised and release the antibiotic payload inside a fat cell.
  - nerdponx 5y ago
    Is this accepted convention? It sounds a lot like the explanation for chronic Lyme disease (except with nerve tissue and not fat cells), which is apparently still quite controversial despite having lots of anecdotal evidence to support it. Also if the parasite is hiding in your fat cells, does that also mean that you can't detect it in a blood test?
    - rini17 5y ago
      Hmm it is possible I confused it with chlamydia. In any case, if it affects behavior, there should be some chemical markers too.
      - someguy101010 5y ago
        Well jeez which one is it man! (Asking for a friend)
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
You mean if I was TOXO free, I could be an even MORE aggressive driver? Totally going to mainline some Ivermectin.
- Fjolsvith 5y ago
  Lots of health benefits from killing the little bugs. Bonus: It's available over the counter!
splittingTimes 5y ago
Stanford neuroendocrinology researcher Robert Sapolsky Explains Toxoplasmosis on the Joe Rogan podcast. Utterly fascinating. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NroiGfNohPo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NroiGfNohPo
prvc 5y ago
The case for devoting resources towards developing an efficient cure is becoming clear.
mortenlarsen 5y ago
I wonder what BAC would generate the same effect.
- throwaway0a5e 5y ago
  There's no universe in which the answer to that question doesn't piss a lot of people off. On one hand you remind people just how un-impaired various BACs are and that pisses them off. On the other hand you make mildly sick people look like drunks and it becomes a potential pretext for denying people freedom of movement.
  - porknubbins 5y ago
    What you mean by how unimpaired various BACs are? I would think there would be a fairly tight curve of BAC to reaction time for an individual. Of course most of driving is so easy that I’m sure a huge percent of the time drunk driving has no consequences, but haven’t we all been in an occasional situation that requires fast reaction to narrowly avoid a crash?
phkahler 5y ago
So cat owners can pay $1 per month more on their car insurance?
- cm2012 5y ago
  Cat ownership doesn't even come up as a major sources of toxoplasmosis infection when studies are done. Wild cats can have it but the source of infection is the dirt they've used, which means house cats are unrelated and no risk. "A total of 252 women with toxoplasmosis, along with 748 controls from Naples, Lausanne, Copenhagen, Oslo, Brussels, and Milan, were interviewed by telephone or in person. Overall, eating raw or undercooked beef, lamb, or other meats; contact with soil; and travel outside the country were major sources of infection." Cats don't even make the list of major sources of infection. Further, "The association of cats and human toxoplasmosis is difficult to assess by epidemiological surveys because soil, not the cats, is the main culprit. Oocysts are not found on cat fur and are often buried in soil along with cat faeces.11 Therefore, direct contact with cats is irrelevant with respect to T gondii transmission, and soil contact is universal and difficult to avoid."
cm2012 5y ago
Your reminder that if you own cats that don't go outdoors they are not a risk factor for toxoplasmosis. Only outdoor and stray cats get the parasite. Most cases of toxoplasmosis come from eating undercooked meat in any case. More info here if you want it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/
- prvc 5y ago
  There's no way for the parasite to know whether it's inside or outside. There are many ways that it can travel to an indoor location outside of a cat.
fellellor 5y ago
So many toxoplasmosis articles in HN makes me think there’s a cat related secret civil war going on here. What is actually going on? Does OP hate cats? Are they in fact a dog person? What might be the cause of such bigotry? Nobody knows.
chicob 5y ago
Here's a more recent meta-analysis. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014489418301814 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144...
twilio20 5y ago
database consultation https://optimizdba.com/ https://optimizdba.com/

101 points by ansaso 5y ago

As interesting as this is, it's kind of got my spidy-sense tingling. How many non-significant outcomes did test and not publish before seeing traffic accidents? The perfect dose-dependence gives more credence (increasing odds ratio at increasing titers), although the sample size is small.

Pyramus 5y ago
Yes, the dose-response is the interesting bit, and strong indication for causation. Not an expert so don't know how well we understand the mechanism of action, which is crucial.
- hn_throwaway_99 5y ago
  The paper states high up that it's been well studied that Toxoplasmosis infection increases reaction time - this study was basically just showing that that laboratory-viewed metric has real-world consequences. As far as mechanism of action, T. gondii infects both neurons in the brain and glial cells.
  - smogcutter 5y ago
    *decreases reaction time
    - nahnahno 5y ago
      Increases reaction times is right == slows reaction

bmeski 5y ago

So cat people can’t drive well? We’ve always known this.

kennywinker 5y ago
I think you're going for a glib lil' fun quip, but that really just sounds like sexism one-step-removed to me. The stereotype of the cat lady, mixed in with the stereotype of women being bad drivers. Unless there's some stereotype about men who like cats I'm not aware of?
- jpxw 5y ago
  Thank god the joke police have arrived to ensure that nobody is entertained inappropriately. Phew, that was a close one.
  - kennywinker 5y ago
    Serious question: if my reply hadn’t been there when you arrived would you have been entertained? If so - what was entertaining about the comment
    - black_niggers 5y ago
      kill urself f@ggot
    - jpxw 5y ago
      It was a glib little quip, as you mentioned. That was the entertaining part. Edit: I’ve just noticed a particularly vile and undeserved comment in reply to you, and to some extent feel responsibility, as it’s part of a comment chain I created. I hope the mods will take action and ban whoever made this comment, although by the looks it’s a burner account. It’s quite jarring to see something like that on HN.
      - kodah 5y ago
        Use the flag feature. If enough people flag it the comment disappears. That's what I did, downvote and flag all comments that don't meet the guidelines for participating in HN.
      - 5y ago

JohnJamesRambo 5y ago

Now I need Progressive to pay for a round of pyrimethamine and sulfadiazine for me.

rini17 5y ago
Latent toxoplasmosis is literally insidious, hidden inside body fat cells where antibiotics won't reach and only occasionally it gets out to infect more cells. So one round is not enough, you have to take antibiotics for years until all the infected cells die.
- eurasiantiger 5y ago
  Hmm. I wonder if there is an antibiotic prodrug that would mimic glucose enough for it to be recognised by beta cells, get metabolised and release the antibiotic payload inside a fat cell.
- nerdponx 5y ago
  Is this accepted convention? It sounds a lot like the explanation for chronic Lyme disease (except with nerve tissue and not fat cells), which is apparently still quite controversial despite having lots of anecdotal evidence to support it. Also if the parasite is hiding in your fat cells, does that also mean that you can't detect it in a blood test?
  - rini17 5y ago
    Hmm it is possible I confused it with chlamydia. In any case, if it affects behavior, there should be some chemical markers too.
    - someguy101010 5y ago
      Well jeez which one is it man! (Asking for a friend)

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

You mean if I was TOXO free, I could be an even MORE aggressive driver? Totally going to mainline some Ivermectin.

Fjolsvith 5y ago
Lots of health benefits from killing the little bugs. Bonus: It's available over the counter!

splittingTimes 5y ago

Stanford neuroendocrinology researcher Robert Sapolsky Explains Toxoplasmosis on the Joe Rogan podcast. Utterly fascinating. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NroiGfNohPo https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NroiGfNohPo

prvc 5y ago

The case for devoting resources towards developing an efficient cure is becoming clear.

mortenlarsen 5y ago

I wonder what BAC would generate the same effect.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago
There's no universe in which the answer to that question doesn't piss a lot of people off. On one hand you remind people just how un-impaired various BACs are and that pisses them off. On the other hand you make mildly sick people look like drunks and it becomes a potential pretext for denying people freedom of movement.
- porknubbins 5y ago
  What you mean by how unimpaired various BACs are? I would think there would be a fairly tight curve of BAC to reaction time for an individual. Of course most of driving is so easy that I’m sure a huge percent of the time drunk driving has no consequences, but haven’t we all been in an occasional situation that requires fast reaction to narrowly avoid a crash?

phkahler 5y ago

So cat owners can pay $1 per month more on their car insurance?

cm2012 5y ago
Cat ownership doesn't even come up as a major sources of toxoplasmosis infection when studies are done. Wild cats can have it but the source of infection is the dirt they've used, which means house cats are unrelated and no risk. "A total of 252 women with toxoplasmosis, along with 748 controls from Naples, Lausanne, Copenhagen, Oslo, Brussels, and Milan, were interviewed by telephone or in person. Overall, eating raw or undercooked beef, lamb, or other meats; contact with soil; and travel outside the country were major sources of infection." Cats don't even make the list of major sources of infection. Further, "The association of cats and human toxoplasmosis is difficult to assess by epidemiological surveys because soil, not the cats, is the main culprit. Oocysts are not found on cat fur and are often buried in soil along with cat faeces.11 Therefore, direct contact with cats is irrelevant with respect to T gondii transmission, and soil contact is universal and difficult to avoid."

cm2012 5y ago

Your reminder that if you own cats that don't go outdoors they are not a risk factor for toxoplasmosis. Only outdoor and stray cats get the parasite. Most cases of toxoplasmosis come from eating undercooked meat in any case. More info here if you want it https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/

prvc 5y ago
There's no way for the parasite to know whether it's inside or outside. There are many ways that it can travel to an indoor location outside of a cat.

fellellor 5y ago

So many toxoplasmosis articles in HN makes me think there’s a cat related secret civil war going on here. What is actually going on? Does OP hate cats? Are they in fact a dog person? What might be the cause of such bigotry? Nobody knows.

chicob 5y ago

Here's a more recent meta-analysis. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014489418301814 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S00144...

twilio20 5y ago

database consultation https://optimizdba.com/ https://optimizdba.com/