Recent medical research suggests that owning a cat could double the chance of developing schizophrenia.
To succeed in that conclusion, scientists in Australia analyzed 17 studies published during the last 44 years from 11 different countries, including the US and the UK.
“Our findings support an association between cat exposure and an increased risk of broadly defined schizophrenia-related disorders,” the authors wrote of their evaluation, published within the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin.
“We found that individuals exposed to cats had roughly twice the percentages of developing schizophrenia,” wrote the research team from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research.
Schizophrenia is a posh mental illness that always runs in families, in line with Johns Hopkins Medicine.
The illness may cause troubling symptoms corresponding to hearing voices, having trouble considering clearly and referring to others. It typically starts suddenly in an individual’s late teens or early maturity.
Symptoms of schizophrenia can even include:
- Delusions or false beliefs not based on reality
- Hallucinations or seeing, hearing, smelling or feeling things that are usually not real
- Disorganized speech and behavior
- Lack of emotion, withdrawal from others
- Paranoia
- Inflated self-worth
Worldwide, the illness is estimated to be present in one in all every 300 people, or about 24 million people, in line with the World Health Organization. Schizophrenia will be managed with medicine and supportive therapy, but there’s no known cure for it.
The concept that cat ownership might be linked to schizophrenia risk isn’t recent and was first proposed in a 1995 study. That report suggested exposure to a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii might be the cause.
The parasite is believed to enter an individual’s body through a cat’s bite or contact with a its bodily fluids or feces. It could even be ingested through contaminated water or undercooked meat.
It’s estimated that about 40 million people within the US could also be infected with T. gondii, often with none symptoms. Nevertheless, the parasite can infiltrate the central nervous system and influence neurotransmitters.
In earlier studies, T. gondii had been linked to personality changes, the emergence of psychotic symptoms and a few neurological disorders, including schizophrenia.
Nevertheless, the researchers note that a link doesn’t definitively prove that T. gondii caused these changes or that the parasite was passed from a cat to a human.
The parasite, nonetheless, has been proven to produce other serious effects on human health, especially for pregnant women, who can pass the parasite through the placenta to the fetus, in line with the Cleveland Clinic
T. gondii increases the chance of miscarriage, stillbirth or serious health problems for the kid, including vision problems, blindness, developmental delays and learning differences.
The study authors noted that more research is required before anyone could make any final interpretations.
“Our review provides support for an association between cat ownership and schizophrenia-related disorders,” the authors wrote.
“There’s a necessity for more high-quality studies, based on large, representative samples to raised understand cat ownership as a candidate risk-modifying factor for mental disorders.”
