
Cat Parasite Affects Everything We Feel and Do - mattmaroon
http://abcnews.go.com/print?id=2288095
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twir
Obligatory: <http://xkcd.com/231/>

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jerf
A sci-fi story that springboards off of this parasite and its effects, which
should appeal to some hacker types:
[http://www.davidwgoldman.com/Invasion_of_the_Pattern_Snatche...](http://www.davidwgoldman.com/Invasion_of_the_Pattern_Snatchers.html)

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rbanffy
A really good one! Thanks for the pointer!

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fnid
There's another instance of this where flukes infect ants making them want to
climb blades of grass where they are eaten by cows. Here's a diagram of the
lifecycle of this odd creature:

[http://workforce.cup.edu/Buckelew/dicrocoelium_dendriticum_i...](http://workforce.cup.edu/Buckelew/dicrocoelium_dendriticum_is_a_bi.htm)

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ajju
I thought this might be bull so I googled it. Apparently the fact that these
parasites affect human behavior is proven! How widespread this is is up for
discussion. <http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/eid/vol9no11/03-0143.htm>

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albemuth
I'm having a hard time thinking this is not a joke myself

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dylanz
My friend who's a 24 year old (extremely cute) female, who eats your Standard
American Diet (but on the healthy side), took a 40 day juice fast about a year
ago.

After about day 30, she passed a huge ball of worms in her stool. Let me
emphasize "huge". Like, a babies fist. Needless to say, she had some
parasites.

I now fear the juice fast... and, in a weird way... her :)

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delackner
Curiosity and revulsion combine. What exactly about an all juice food regimen
would kill off that ball of parasites?

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bhousel
Yeah, ditto on the curiosity and revulsion. Is this a normal occurrence when
juice fasting? What kind of juice? And when it was all over, any after-
effects?

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yannis
'Research has shown that women who are infected with the parasite tend to be
warm, outgoing and attentive to others, while infected men tend to be less
intelligent and probably a bit boring. But both men and women who are infected
are more prone to feeling guilty and insecure.'

Although I do not doubt the infection rates I am sceptical about the
conclusions. Any woman that does not LOVE cats is obviously not warm and
attentive of others and I would like to see more details on the men samples;
for example were they married to the above ladies or not. Do guilty and
insecure people tend to have cats as pets?

Anyway I love cats since I was a kid and I am male! Worth the infection if I
have it and perhaps the reason that so far I have not catch AIDS!

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jrockway
_Anyway I love cats since I was a kid and I am male! Worth the infection if I
have it and perhaps the reason that so far I have not catch AIDS!_

I like cats too, but I feel like I am missing something here. How did you get
from "I love cats" to not getting AIDS?

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DavidSJ
I think the idea is he loves cats, not women.

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thesecret
That's why pregnant women are told to stay away from cats during term

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pyre
Not cats, but cat feces. (i.e. she shouldn't be changing her cat's -- or cats'
-- litter box)

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erlanger
This parasite is indeed real and widespread, and the reason you don't notice
its effects in others is because its effects are rather minor, resulting from
small brain infections and increased dopamine at certain sites (I had no luck
pinpointing the location of these, unfortunately).

The most agreed-upon effect appears to be that the parasite results in
decreased neophilia. What a sensationalist story like this one will not tell
you is that the observed effects are "rather low":

 _Our results showed that CMV infected subjects had lower scores in the
personality dimension novelty seeking than the CMV-free subjects. Novelty
seeking in infected subjects negatively correlated with levels of anti-CMV
antibodies. Negative correlation was also found between novelty seeking and
Toxoplasma-infection in Prague, while in villages and smaller cities the
correlation was not significant. The effect of both infections, although
highly significant, was rather low, explaining about 2 % of total variability
of the novelty seeking in our experimental set._

<http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/5/54>

Further, while cats are this parasite's original host, it seems that you're as
likely to become infected form undercooked meat as from water polluted with
cat fecal matter. I guess that's not as much fun as saying "cats are bad, now
everyone fight!" I love how every media outlet picked this up as soon ('06,
granted) as possible but it took Reuters a month to report on conclusive
findings that marijuana consumption results in lower incidence of head and
neck cancer.

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biohacker42
This is old news and fluff. For a less fluffy article:

 _Increased incidence of traffic accidents in Toxoplasma-infected military
drivers and protective effect RhD molecule revealed by a large-scale
prospective cohort study._

Look here: <http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/9/72>

Courtesy of the hard science sub-reddit.

For those with too little time to read the actual paper, here's the results
summary:

 _We confirmed, using for the first time a prospective cohort study design,
increased risk of traffic accidents in Toxoplasma-infected subjects and
demonstrated a strong protective effect of RhD positivity against the risk of
traffic accidents posed by latent toxoplasmosis. Our results show that RhD-
negative subjects with high titers of anti-Toxoplasma antibodies had a
probability of a traffic accident of about 16.7%, i.e. a more than six times
higher rate than Toxoplasma-free or RhD-positive subjects._

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erlanger
In case I missed it, did that study control for location? I know that the
other study stated that it did not have much (if any) background information
on the candidates, but did say that infection rates for the parasite are
higher in villages and small towns. I think that this is a significant lurking
variable in any traffic accident analysis, and needs to be considered: In my
experience, rural folk are less exposed to some of the more "creative" driving
situations than those who live closer in.

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biohacker42
Good catch! I don't think they controlled for location.

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zeynel1
Obviously there is a limit how much cats will take being humiliated as bad
spellers all around the internet by humans. Revenge is here.

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henning
The cheezburgers are just an elaborate ruse.

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swombat
Come on. This is not HN material. What's next? Lolcats?

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gojomo
I find new discoveries about incurable diseases which change human
personalities on the scale of individuals and whole societies very HN-worthy,
by the same standard as other science/medical discoveries.

Unfortunately, this is (1) old news; and (2) especially prone to obvious,
knee-jerk LOLcats jokes -- there were already three before your comment. So I
have mixed feelings about its topicality.

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electromagnetic
Firstly it's a very old discovery, just the effects of latent toxoplasmosis
are becoming more newsworthy in tabloids and fluff pieces, traditionally the
whole encephalitis was what people worried about.

Toxoplasmosis' only agreed upon (and still alleged) effect is a decrease in
neophilia, which is linked to monoamine oxidase A a product of the so called
'warrior gene' that is far more prevalent in society than toxoplasmosis
infections (33% genetic prevalence amongst European whites IIRC and ~60% in
Asian/Pacific Islanders).

Oh and BTW toxoplasmosis is easily curable, it's regularly cured in humans and
in animals that carry it used for food production (Pigs, Sheep and farmed
Deers). The reason doctors don't treat it, is because you're safer to have
latent toxoplasmosis than none at all, not only can it lead to miscarriages in
women, but the chance of encephalitis increases with decreased immune
function. So if you get toxoplasmosis when you're healthy, like most people,
you'll be fine, but if doctors go around curing it you'll get reinfected and
seriously increase your risk for _death_.

Ironically the mild production of Monoamine Oxidase A is known for a decrease
in danger-seeking behaviour, but extreme production (witnessed in people with
the Warrior Gene) is known for an increase in danger-seeking behaviour.
Toxoplasmosis apparently acts like the warrior gene for mice, but will in fact
likely prolong the life of a human infected with latent toxoplasmosis.

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antidaily
I had toxoplasmosis when I was 12. It made my vision cloudy for a day or so
until I was pumped full of prednisone to fight it. I still have a tiny blind
spot in my eye from it, but (to my knowledge) no other long-term effects.
Sidenote: I had an eye exam the other day and the doctor could no longer
recognize it as toxo - he thought it was histo, which is apparently something
you get from chickens.

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electromagnetic
It's good to hear that your only lasting effect is a tiny blind spot; can you
yourself observe it, or is it only noticeable on an eye exam?

Histoplasmosis IIRC is caused by a fungus spore. It's common in the ground
everywhere, however in certain areas it's a lot more prevalent for some
reason, I believe the states surrounding the Ohio and Mississippi rivers are
the main place in North America. It's apparently on 80% of peoples skin in
these areas, which is similar to ringworm (another fungus) in most people.
However dirt infused with bird or bat droppings are a hotbed, so chicken
litter of infected chickens is the common source for most humans. The only
time fungi usually cause problems is when they get out of control, and dealing
with infected guano is probably a good bet. IIRC it's usually an inhaled
infection (causes something like pneumonia) but sometimes, often children,
accidentally rub it into their eyes.

I had a severe outbreak of ringworm, my doctor told me it was highly
contagious and I likely caught it from my dog. My dog was clean and when I
visited a dermatologist he told me that because I have psoriasis the ringworm
fungus basically struck it lucky and got through the skin. Incidentally the
ringworm 'cured' my psoriasis (it used to cover about 20% of my torso and
limbs, now I don't have a single patch).

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robotrout
You say you have medical knowledge. Regarding your claim that the ringworm
cured your psoriasis. I find that a very exciting claim, if true. There are
other cases of people using parasites to cure illness.

Is anybody using ringworm as a psoriasis treatment?

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gojomo
Perhaps by "other cases" you're alluding to accounts like this one, of using
intentional hookworm infection to treat allergies. If not, you may find it
interesting:

<http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2006/4/30/91945/8971>

