Cats Not Linked To Brain Cancer After All

sciencehabit writes with good news for cat owners everywhere. From the article: "Last year, cat owners got a scare when a team of French researchers reported a possible link between felines and brain cancer. Cat feces can harbor a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma gondii, and the scientists found that nations with higher rates of human T. gondii infection also have higher incidences of brain cancer. A new study challenges those findings [paywalled after the first view]. Scientists examining a cohort of more than 600,000 British women found that cat owners were no more likely to develop brain cancer than their cat-free counterparts, despite their presumably greater risk of exposure to T. gondii." The study in question mostly just found that T. gondii infection rates aren't correlated with cat ownership after all, but there's still no word on whether our friend the parasite causes cancer or not.

Again...

[Anonymous Coward]

A cat infected with toxoplasma gondii will excrete the parasite in the feces for some days (weeks) after first infection, and then will stop doing it forever.
Most toxoplasmosis infectiosn in humans are due to consuming uncooked meat or poorly washed vegetables.

You probably have it too

[muon-catalyzed]

Half of the world's human population carry a Toxoplasma infection. [wikipedia.org] So better choose your bridge jump off point.

Mind-altering parasite

[T.E.D.]

I happened to be looking at this yesterday after hearing an NPR story. It turns out that T. gondii [wikipedia.org] is actually a mind-altering parasite. It reproduces in the guts of rodents, and then in order to get back into its preferred cat hosts, has actually evolved to alter the brains of rodents [wikipedia.org] to make them find the odor of cats sexually appealing. Yes, you heard that right.

It puts a whole new spin on all those Tom & Jerry cartoons, now doesn't it?

Of course your next question is if it does something similar to infected humans. Supposedly, it has been shown to cause a statistically significant increase in car accidents among the infected. Perhaps that study will be countered too though.