A cat can be comforting to own, but the purring pet could also be harming your health.
A study published last week has found that women are at increased risk of attempting suicide if they're infected with a particular parasite spread through contact with cat faeces or from eating undercooked meat or unwashed vegetables.
Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) hides in cells in the brain and muscles, often without producing symptoms. The infection, which goes by the name of toxoplasmosis, has been linked to mental illness, such as schizophrenia, and also to changes in behaviour.
Researchers from the University of Maryland in the US and the University of Aarhus in Denmark analysed data from more than 45,000 Danish women and their babies. The study's findings were published last week in the Archives of General Psychiatry.
'We can't say with certainty that T. gondii caused the women to try to kill themselves, but we did find a predictive association between the infection and suicide attempts later in life that warrants additional studies,' says Teodor Postolache, the senior author and an associate professor of psychiatry who's director of Maryland's mood and anxiety programme. 'We plan to continue our research into this possible connection.'
The study found that women infected with the parasite were 50 per cent likelier to attempt suicide compared with those who were not infected, and the risk seemed to rise with increasing levels of the T. gondii antibodies. Previous mental illness did not appear to significantly alter these findings.