5 ms·

Is there a cheap test for this? I don't wanna run out to my Dr. and seem like a complete nut but I do worry I got this. I am an absolute idiot

lkbm 2y ago
Yes. I don't know exactly how cheap, but it's a big risk for pregnant women (not to have it, but to get infected while pregnant), so they have tests available, and it was affordable enough that my fiancee did it as part of her a prenatal screening.
dvh 2y ago
Are you attracted to cougars in your area?
- kbenson 2y ago
  No judgement here. If I was dating, that would be my dating pool... In all seriousness, since this topic comes around every couple years, I've always wondered if we tested different populations of people based on career if we'd see some correlation. Cats are fairly ubiquitous across populations (but knowing if there's a higher prevalence in some would be important), so there's at least a chance for most people to be exposed I think.
  - shagie 2y ago
    https://slate.com/technology/2010/07/could-a-brain-parasite-found-in-cats-help-soccer-teams-win-at-the-world-cup.html https://slate.com/technology/2010/07/could-a-brain-parasite-... > Landon Donovan Needs a Cat > Could a brain parasite found in cats help soccer teams win at the World Cup? > ... > If we set aside the qualifying rounds (in which teams can play to a draw) and focus on matches with a clear winner, the results are very compelling. In the knockout round of this year’s tournament, eight out of eight winners so far have been the teams whose countries had higher rates of Toxo infection. If we go back to the 2006 World Cup, seven out of eight knockout-round winners could be predicted by higher Toxo rates. The one exception to the rule was Brazil’s defeat of Ghana, a match between two nations that each have very high rates. (Aside from having the winningest team in World Cup history, Brazil has quite a few cases of Toxo: Two out of three Brazilians are infected.) > It gets better. Rank the top 25 FIFA team countries by Toxo rate and you get, in order from the top: Brazil (67 percent), Argentina (52 percent), France (45 percent), Spain (44 percent), and Germany (43 percent). Collectively, these are the teams responsible for eight of the last 10 World Cup overall winners. Spain, the only one of the group never to have won a cup, is no subpar outlier—the Spaniards have the most World Cup victories of any perpetual runner-up. ... and yes, that that's not a science paper. Slate is far from being a paper hosted at NIH. ... so... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7928503/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7928503/ > Potential linkage between Toxoplasma gondii infection and physical education scores of college students > ... > The overall seroprevalence of T. gondii was 11.5%. The main risk factors related to T. gondii infection in college students were cat in the household and gardening or agriculture activity. Furthermore, in the basketball group and the soccer group, scores of T. gondii seropositive students were significantly higher than those of seronegative students, while in other sports there was no difference between scores of T. gondii-infected students and T. gondii uninfected students.
  - cm2012 2y ago
    There's so much BS around toxoplasmosis online. 1) Almost everyone who has it got it from eating undercooked meat, not from cats. France has the highest rate of toxoplasmosis in the world because of their propensity for rare meats: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5312802/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5312802/. 2) Unless your cat lived a long part of it's life as an outdoor cat, it is very unlikely to have the parasite (like any parasite).
    - Scramblejams 2y ago
      I read your linked piece. It’s about pregnant women and toxoplasmosis and variations in treatments and outcomes in France and the US. I didn’t see anything about rare meats, and I only saw comparisons in infection rates among pregnant woman, women of child-bearing age, and infants in France vs US and a mention of South America when comparing type diversity. What am I missing?
      - cm2012 2y ago
        Thank you for noticing, I pasted in the wrong link! Corrected: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/
        kbenson 2y ago
        I'm not sure that says what you claimed? Overall, eating raw or undercooked beef, lamb, or other meats; contact with soil; and travel outside the country were major sources of infection. Contact with soil is from cats shedding oocysts, as covered earlier in the same extract, and while that doesn't necessitate owning a cat, I would classify it as exposure to cats (your neighbors outdoor cat shitting in your yard is still cat exposure to my sensibilities). 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. Therefore, direct contact with cats is irrelevant with respect to T gondii transmission, and soil contact is universal and difficult to avoid. Which doesn't say cats don't matter, just that direct exposure doesn't matter. Soil exposure is exposure to cats through an intermediary, just not direct. It will still likely be affected by prevalence of cats in a population, even if not necessarily at a household level. So, I think the article answers my original question to a degree, but I also think your claim that almost everyone that has it got it through eating meat with it in it is too strong given the sources you quoted (thanks a lot for posting them though, it's always nice to have data for a discussion!). If you think my reading of it is incorrect or I'm missing something, please let me know though.
retrac 2y ago
There are antibody tests to show if you've ever had it, and approximately how intense/active the infection is. Mild latent and recent past infection is hard to distinguish apart from an antibody test alone. Decreasing antibody concentration over time = fighting it off successfully, or past infection fading away (probably). Antibody tests like that aren't terribly expensive. (Well under $100 here in Canada if uninsured.) Direct testing for the parasite's DNA in the cerebral-spinal fluid (yeah, a spinal tap sorry) is sensitive, too. Attempting to detect it elsewhere (blood, etc.) works but isn't as reliable. This is more expensive but sometimes used when unsure. Otherwise, in combination with that, it's diagnosed symptomatically. It shows up on a brain scan if the lesions get big enough, not to be alarmist.
- BitwiseFool 2y ago
  No need to test, just give me treatment.
- Tijdreiziger 2y ago
  What are the symptoms?
  - chasil 2y ago
    Symptoms of toxoplasmosis are only present in the immuno-compromised. The behavioral changes are a different story. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
    - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
      I’ve always found the term ‘immunocompromised’ to be somewhat vague. I use immunosuppressive medication to manage a chronic condition, so I assume my immune function is worse than someone not using such, but better than e.g. someone undergoing chemotherapy. Does this make me immunocompromised or not? Or, where does it place me on the scale? What precautions should I take?
      - deleted 2y ago
colechristensen 2y ago
Something like a third of the world population is estimated to be infected. More like 1 in 10 in the US. Two questions, why do you care and what is anybody going to do about it? (The answer to the second question is “almost certainly nothing”) There was a now discontinued (US) blood pressure medicine called guanabenz which studies were showing some effectiveness against the latent stage, but it’s no longer available.
vundercind 2y ago
Reading about the treatments, good luck getting ahold of the medicine required to maybe kill a latent infection unless you’ve got some serious risk factors (like AIDS). And I didn’t check but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the kind of thing you don’t want to take unless you have to. So knowing might not matter that much.

lkbm 2y ago

Yes. I don't know exactly how cheap, but it's a big risk for pregnant women (not to have it, but to get infected while pregnant), so they have tests available, and it was affordable enough that my fiancee did it as part of her a prenatal screening.

dvh 2y ago

Are you attracted to cougars in your area?

kbenson 2y ago
No judgement here. If I was dating, that would be my dating pool... In all seriousness, since this topic comes around every couple years, I've always wondered if we tested different populations of people based on career if we'd see some correlation. Cats are fairly ubiquitous across populations (but knowing if there's a higher prevalence in some would be important), so there's at least a chance for most people to be exposed I think.
- shagie 2y ago
  https://slate.com/technology/2010/07/could-a-brain-parasite-found-in-cats-help-soccer-teams-win-at-the-world-cup.html https://slate.com/technology/2010/07/could-a-brain-parasite-... > Landon Donovan Needs a Cat > Could a brain parasite found in cats help soccer teams win at the World Cup? > ... > If we set aside the qualifying rounds (in which teams can play to a draw) and focus on matches with a clear winner, the results are very compelling. In the knockout round of this year’s tournament, eight out of eight winners so far have been the teams whose countries had higher rates of Toxo infection. If we go back to the 2006 World Cup, seven out of eight knockout-round winners could be predicted by higher Toxo rates. The one exception to the rule was Brazil’s defeat of Ghana, a match between two nations that each have very high rates. (Aside from having the winningest team in World Cup history, Brazil has quite a few cases of Toxo: Two out of three Brazilians are infected.) > It gets better. Rank the top 25 FIFA team countries by Toxo rate and you get, in order from the top: Brazil (67 percent), Argentina (52 percent), France (45 percent), Spain (44 percent), and Germany (43 percent). Collectively, these are the teams responsible for eight of the last 10 World Cup overall winners. Spain, the only one of the group never to have won a cup, is no subpar outlier—the Spaniards have the most World Cup victories of any perpetual runner-up. ... and yes, that that's not a science paper. Slate is far from being a paper hosted at NIH. ... so... https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7928503/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7928503/ > Potential linkage between Toxoplasma gondii infection and physical education scores of college students > ... > The overall seroprevalence of T. gondii was 11.5%. The main risk factors related to T. gondii infection in college students were cat in the household and gardening or agriculture activity. Furthermore, in the basketball group and the soccer group, scores of T. gondii seropositive students were significantly higher than those of seronegative students, while in other sports there was no difference between scores of T. gondii-infected students and T. gondii uninfected students.
- cm2012 2y ago
  There's so much BS around toxoplasmosis online. 1) Almost everyone who has it got it from eating undercooked meat, not from cats. France has the highest rate of toxoplasmosis in the world because of their propensity for rare meats: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5312802/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5312802/. 2) Unless your cat lived a long part of it's life as an outdoor cat, it is very unlikely to have the parasite (like any parasite).
  - Scramblejams 2y ago
    I read your linked piece. It’s about pregnant women and toxoplasmosis and variations in treatments and outcomes in France and the US. I didn’t see anything about rare meats, and I only saw comparisons in infection rates among pregnant woman, women of child-bearing age, and infants in France vs US and a mention of South America when comparing type diversity. What am I missing?
    - cm2012 2y ago
      Thank you for noticing, I pasted in the wrong link! Corrected: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1118145/
      - kbenson 2y ago
        I'm not sure that says what you claimed? Overall, eating raw or undercooked beef, lamb, or other meats; contact with soil; and travel outside the country were major sources of infection. Contact with soil is from cats shedding oocysts, as covered earlier in the same extract, and while that doesn't necessitate owning a cat, I would classify it as exposure to cats (your neighbors outdoor cat shitting in your yard is still cat exposure to my sensibilities). 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. Therefore, direct contact with cats is irrelevant with respect to T gondii transmission, and soil contact is universal and difficult to avoid. Which doesn't say cats don't matter, just that direct exposure doesn't matter. Soil exposure is exposure to cats through an intermediary, just not direct. It will still likely be affected by prevalence of cats in a population, even if not necessarily at a household level. So, I think the article answers my original question to a degree, but I also think your claim that almost everyone that has it got it through eating meat with it in it is too strong given the sources you quoted (thanks a lot for posting them though, it's always nice to have data for a discussion!). If you think my reading of it is incorrect or I'm missing something, please let me know though.

retrac 2y ago

There are antibody tests to show if you've ever had it, and approximately how intense/active the infection is. Mild latent and recent past infection is hard to distinguish apart from an antibody test alone. Decreasing antibody concentration over time = fighting it off successfully, or past infection fading away (probably). Antibody tests like that aren't terribly expensive. (Well under $100 here in Canada if uninsured.) Direct testing for the parasite's DNA in the cerebral-spinal fluid (yeah, a spinal tap sorry) is sensitive, too. Attempting to detect it elsewhere (blood, etc.) works but isn't as reliable. This is more expensive but sometimes used when unsure. Otherwise, in combination with that, it's diagnosed symptomatically. It shows up on a brain scan if the lesions get big enough, not to be alarmist.

BitwiseFool 2y ago
No need to test, just give me treatment.
Tijdreiziger 2y ago
What are the symptoms?
- chasil 2y ago
  Symptoms of toxoplasmosis are only present in the immuno-compromised. The behavioral changes are a different story. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
  - Tijdreiziger 2y ago
    I’ve always found the term ‘immunocompromised’ to be somewhat vague. I use immunosuppressive medication to manage a chronic condition, so I assume my immune function is worse than someone not using such, but better than e.g. someone undergoing chemotherapy. Does this make me immunocompromised or not? Or, where does it place me on the scale? What precautions should I take?
    - deleted 2y ago

colechristensen 2y ago

Something like a third of the world population is estimated to be infected. More like 1 in 10 in the US. Two questions, why do you care and what is anybody going to do about it? (The answer to the second question is “almost certainly nothing”) There was a now discontinued (US) blood pressure medicine called guanabenz which studies were showing some effectiveness against the latent stage, but it’s no longer available.

vundercind 2y ago

Reading about the treatments, good luck getting ahold of the medicine required to maybe kill a latent infection unless you’ve got some serious risk factors (like AIDS). And I didn’t check but I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re the kind of thing you don’t want to take unless you have to. So knowing might not matter that much.