Comment by meindnoch | Hacker News Reader

Comment by meindnoch | Hacker News Reader

"Risky business: linking Toxoplasma gondii infection and entrepreneurship behaviours across individuals and countries" (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30051870/)

>Among professionals attending entrepreneurship events, T. gondii-positive individuals were 1.8× more likely to have started their own business compared with other attendees (n = 197). Finally, after synthesizing and combining country-level databases on T. gondii infection from the past 25 years with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor of entrepreneurial activity, we found that infection prevalence was a consistent, positive predictor of entrepreneurial activity and intentions at the national scale, regardless of whether previously identified economic covariates were included.

"The association of latent toxoplasmosis and level of serum testosterone in humans" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5994116/)

>Comparison of testosterone concentrations and control groups showed that testosterone concentration in study group was higher than that in control group with statistically significant difference.

"Toxoplasma gondii infection enhances testicular steroidogenesis in rats" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.12042)

>Testosterone, a testicular steroid, is known to reduce fear and enhance sexual attractiveness in males. Here, we show that Toxoplasma gondii infection enhances expression of genes involved in facilitating synthesis of testosterone, resulting in greater testicular testosterone production in male rats.

I can see the headlines now "you won't believe this one weird trick for bigger gains and better performance in bed".

What is the legal framework for a product that infects people with "beneficial" parasites ?

As long as it doesn’t affect my essential fluids, I’m game

Maybe read https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasite_%28Grant_novel%29 first...

Just take it with pure rain water and you’ll be fine.

Just call it a supplement and you can do anything

Ever seen “probiotics” for sale at the shops? Or live culture yoghurt?

In a world where people are supplementing with turkesterone... It's an arthropod moulting hormone-analogue. But it's an ecdysteroid. So surely its ergogenic.

Sure, why not.

2 billion people already have the Toxoplasma gondii in their brains. If it were to affect humanity is some profound way, we would have already linked it to something more substantial than n=197 studies of correlating success in entrepreneurship to the virus.

That's not how science works.

This may very well be true. I wish you had posted more of a direct criticism of the study in question other than its small sample size.

It may have had a similar control group and could be relevant. It could be that individuals with more of the parasite are more likely to become entrepreneurs still.

Good point. We should stop studying it because we should have known by now.

There are other studies that link Toxoplasmosis to increased risk taking. Here one on increased likelihood of getting into car accidents: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC117239/#__ffn_s....

It's widely known for many years now. Twenty years ago there was a huge report about it on German public radio. The article I looked references research from the seventies.

It's been a strange philosophical point to me that catching a parasite that really wants to be in your cat can alter your personality and unless you are a pregnant woman the medical system ignores it.

What's the medical system going to do about a parasite that often doesn't cause any symptoms that can pinpoint the particular pathogen? Most healthy people clear the infection without ever knowing anything happened.

We don't have any way to undo whatever the parasite did while it was active. It's probably possible to create a vaccine, but the full impact in humans is still being explored and a vaccine for a pathogen that's been with us mostly unnoticed since cats have been with us isn't a high priority.

I'd also say decades of research into the effects of T. gondii is explicitly not the medical system ignoring it. It's the medical system being aware of it, but there aren't any great solutions at this point.

I'd also like to point out the difference between difficult to define risk-taking behavior in adults vs. miscarriage, blindness, neurological issues, and hydrocephalus among other risks to a fetus.

I definitely don't have a clear answer here either. It's just a interesting thing to think about. It's very common and can change you or your loved ones personality. However, reviving it of course would also changed your personality. I've noticed recently that I've gotten much more risk-averse than I used to be and think it might be bad. Maybe I should get toxoplasmosis on purpose? Really creates a lot of questions about "self".

If T. gondii has you questioning the existence of free will, you should (or maybe shouldn't) look into how your gut microbiota affect your mental processes. We're less individuals and more systems of millions of different critters.

Thanks! I've already down that and many similar rabbit holes and am entirely puzzled about self, sentients and existence :)

That's a pretty bold take from somebody who thinks it's a virus and not a single-celled parasite. But then as Charles Darwin said, "ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge."

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