Is there association between Toxoplasma gondii infection and bipolar disorder? | Hacker News Reader

Is there association between Toxoplasma gondii infection and bipolar disorder?

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48 pointsdelian6613 comments

Another article on this subject: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/how-your-c...

Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3573694

And a good conversation with Robert Sapolsky: https://www.edge.org/conversation/toxo

8 studies included, each with small sample sizes, with a combined OR estimate of only 1.26 makes it hard to draw any conclusions from this.

If the effect size were much larger, like an OR of 3, that would be suspicious as well, since the ORs for suicide/accident/mortality/schizophrenia and Toxoplasma also tend to be in the 1-2 range. I would consider this as part of a broader picture showing a pervasive small-medium correlation of toxoplasma infections & bad things involving the central nervous system.

It's interesting because we know that a lot of other infectious agents can really screw up the nervous system, and psychiatric disorders repeatedly show genetic correlations with the immune system.

Very happy to have your comment, Gwern. I am a big fan of some of your work.

I certainly agree with you in principle. I just am not sure the sample sizes here are truly large enough to capture an effect on the order of 1.25x for such a complex phenotype. It's not necessarily a criticism of the author's work, which appears to be well-done. I just updated my prior and remain not yet convinced.

I also agree that many psychiatric disorders certainly have integral immune components, but on the other hand this is also true for most chronic diseases and pathologic processes (in my opinion).

OR of 1.25 is what, 15% attributable risk? Without any ground for causality either. I agree that it is really hard to draw any conclusion from this meta-analysis.

"Crazy cat lady" is possibly more than just a term of endearment.

How is T. gondii infection actually diagnosed? Is there a way to treat it?

Simple blood test. No way to treat it.

In Turkey it is prevalent. Pregnant women who tested negative are discouraged from eating raw fruits or vegetables unless they know that the food was properly sanitized. Catching it during pregnancy might cause disfigurement of fetus.

No way to treat it? what about antibiotics and then the healthy immune system?

It's a protozoan, antibiotics aren't going to do anything.

Lots of people refer to all antimicrobials as antibiotics. Protozoa can still be treated in multiple ways with antimicrobials.

You can treat it with some antibiotics, but this is not needed normally because the immune system of a normal adult can deal with it. It needs to be treated in two special cases: HIV positive people and pregnant women suffering a primary infection during pregnancy.

Pregnant women have to be tested for toxoplasm. If they have developped antibodies they had the infection in the past and unless the mother have other health issues or immune system problems, all should be ok (follow the advice of your doctor). If not and still negative, she should take some safety measures and carefully check for low-grade fever and other symptoms of acute infection during pregnancy; the infection can be and must be treated; as soon as possible. For the pregnancy period and until the first year of life of the baby.

It is estimated among 500 and 5000 cases of newborns having congenital Toxoplasmosis in USA each year (Boyer et al. 2005, American journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology 192). The prognosis is good if treated early.

Cats

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