Just to add . . . sorry for the poorly worded post but I think the idea was conveyed. Also, I know this wasn't exactly the point of the original post ...
Lee R. Lee Zasloff, PhD Adjunct Instructor, Psychology American River College Sacramento, CA http://www.wix.com/rlzasloff/animal-connections ________________________________ From: Zasloff, Lee [zasl...@arc.losrios.edu] Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 1:20 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: RE: [tips] NPR says... It's been known for ages that cats can carry toxoplasmosis. That's one of the reasons that teaching a cat to use a toilet - while very cute and a seemingly good idea for eliminating a cat box. It can contaminate the water supply with this parasite. There's a really simple way to avoid being infected -- don't touch cat poop. Anyone who's really upset by this can just use gloves. Even people with AIDS have been keeping their cats by using these kinds of safeguards with no risk to their health. Must be something weird going on in Denmark. I wonder how many cats are now going to end of in shelters because of this. Lee R. Lee Zasloff, PhD Adjunct Instructor, Psychology American River College Sacramento, CA http://www.wix.com/rlzasloff/animal-connections ________________________________ From: devoldercar...@gmail.com [devoldercar...@gmail.com] Sent: Sunday, July 08, 2012 12:13 PM To: Teaching in the Psychological Sciences (TIPS) Subject: [tips] NPR says... My dog tipped me off to this. She's lobbying to get rid of the cat. A Parasite Carried By Cats Could Increase Suicide Risk by Jon Hamilton<http://www.npr.org/people/2100615/jon-hamilton> 05:28 pm [What's the link between cats and madness?] Hans Martens/iStockphoto.com<http://www.hansmartens.com> What's the link between cats and madness? There's fresh evidence that cats can be a threat to your mental health. To be fair, it's not kitties themselves that are the problem, but a parasite they carry called Toxoplasma gondii<http://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/gen_info/faqs.html>. A study of more than 45,000 Danish women found that those infected with this feline parasite were 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide than women who weren't infected. That's not a huge increase, but it's probably too big to have been caused by chance, says Teodor Postolache<http://medschool.umaryland.edu/facultyresearchprofile/viewprofile.aspx?id=7394>, a University of Maryland psychiatrist and senior author of the paper<http://archpsyc.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1206779>, which was published in the Archives of General Psychiatry. Still, the absolute risk of suicide remains very small. Fewer than 1,000 of the women attempted any sort of self-directed violence during the 30-year study span. And just seven committed suicide. But this isn't the first time T. gondii infection, or toxoplasmosis, has been associated with behavioral changes in people, Postolache says. Previous studies have shown links to schizophrenia<http://schizophreniabulletin.oxfordjournals.org/content/38/3/642.abstract%29>, bipolar disorder, and even the chance that a person will get in an automobile accident<http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2334/9/72/>. Related NPR Stories Invasion Of The Mind-Controlling Zombie Parasites<http://www.npr.org/2011/10/30/141832947/invasion-of-the-mind-controlling-parasites?ps=rs> Oct. 30, 2011 Eat Your Worms: The Upside Of Parasites<http://www.npr.org/2010/12/02/131753267/eat-your-worms-the-upside-of-parasites?ps=rs> Dec. 2, 2010 Research Links Parasite In Cats To Mental Illnesses<http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=127955946&ps=rs> June 19, 2010 The T. gondii parasite lives in the intestines of cats. Cat owners can become infected when they change a litter box, Postolache says. But he says people are more likely to be infected when they eat vegetables or meat that are raw or undercooked. "People should not give their cats away" because of this study, Postolache says. Scientists still aren't sure how the parasite affects a person's brain, he says. But in rodents, it causes cysts to form in areas of the brain involved in behavior. A study of rats also found that infection caused them to lose their fear of cats<http://www.pnas.org/content/104/15/6442.short> and become attracted to the odor of cat urine. That behavioral change would increase the chance that a rat would be eaten by a cat — allowing the parasite to get into the cat's intestine, which is the only place it can reproduce sexually. The parasite doesn't benefit much from infecting a human, since cats don't eat people very often. So humans are probably just "collateral damage" from the parasites' effort to infect smaller animals, says Robert Yolken<http://www.hopkinschildrens.org/robert-yolken-md.aspx>, an infectious disease expert at Johns Hopkins University. Yolken says he owns two cats and that "the benefits outweigh the risks." --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: zasl...@arc.losrios.edu<mailto:zasl...@arc.losrios.edu>. To unsubscribe click here: http://fsulist.frostburg.edu/u?id=563788.826e2126ca226db4aa4ffe75f22f5c88&n=T&l=tips&o=18889 (It may be necessary to cut and paste the above URL if the line is broken) or send a blank email to leave-18889-563788.826e2126ca226db4aa4ffe75f22f5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu<mailto:leave-18889-563788.826e2126ca226db4aa4ffe75f22f5...@fsulist.frostburg.edu> --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: zasl...@arc.losrios.edu<mailto:zasl...@arc.losrios.edu>. 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