Today lets briefly talk about cat poop. Well not cat poop per say, but rather a small parasite that lives and reproduces in your kitty, runs free in its poop and can infect you. This parasite has the name Toxoplasma gondii and it's actually quite interesting looking into all of the research surrounding it and the potential effects that it has on both animals and us.
What The Hell Is Toxoplasma gondii?
As I said above, Toxoplasma gondii firstly is a protozoa (a single cellular eukaryotic organism, its NOT a bacteria) and secondly it is an obligate intracellular parasite, what this means is that it needs to be living inside of its host's cells in order to reproduce. What is interesting about this is while it is possible for Toxoplasma gondii to infect most warm blooded animals (including mammals like us and birds), it can only reproduce in creatures in the family Felidae (AKA Cats... or lions) [1], [2].
When Toxoplasma gondii infects someone (or some animal) it groups together into tissue cysts:
You can see all of the individual T. gondii cells inside of that blob (cyst) in the image above pretty clearly. The way cats usually come in contact with T. gondii is through there predatory behavior. See in most animals these cysts are found in muscle tissue (or the eyes, or brain...)[2], very frequently in mice or birds. Who loves to hunt mice or birds? Cats. The cats hunt and eat the mouse or bird and get infected with the parasite. It grows and then sheds what is known as an oocyst which is just an early stage in the T. gondii parasites life cycle. These oocysts are then pooped out by the cat [7].
Now what animals love to eat poop? Why mice and birds of course! So the cycle repeats, the mice eat the poop get infected by Toxoplasma gondii, get hunted by cats which then also get infected allowing the parasite to reproduce and spread further.
What About It's Effects On Humans
Humans are nice hosts for T. gondii too! In fact it's one of the most common parasitic infections in even modern developed countries, with some studies estamating that up to 50% of the worlds population may have a chronic infection [3], [8]. This means if you stand in between two people, take a hard look at them, there's a pretty good chance that one of them is harboring this parasite.
Okay... that's a surprising number of infected people, but what does it do?
The initial infection is usually short and has symptoms of fever, muscle weakness and rarely require treatment. These infections usually result in the formation of what is known as a "semi dormant cyst" which can't be eliminated by an antibiotic. [7] As a result these chronic infections could always flair up again, but their is one plus in many cases the chronic infection is thought to do NOTHING [3]. However this may have more to do with our lack of understanding about it then that truly being the case as there are a variety of other studies linking T. gondii infection with a variety of problems including Schizophrenia, Headaches, Brain Tumors, Aggressive Behavior.
That last one is odd right?! Studies found that people diagnosed with a rage disorder, were more than twice as likely to be infected with T. gondii then people who were not diagnosed with a rage disorder. However as with other articles I have discussed in the past, this is a correlation and not evidence for causation. It's still interesting though!
T. gondii infection and pregnancy
One other more potentially serious issues can occur if a pregnant mother is infected by T. gondii, in this case it is possible to pass the parasite onto the fetus which can result in a whole bunch of problems for the growing baby.
These issues include premature birth, visual defects, seizures or other neurological defects, mental retardation and possibly... death of the fetus. [7], [9], [10]. Though to make you feel a bit better about this if you are already infected with the parasite before you become pregnant, there is little to no concern. It is only getting the infection during their pregnancy, where the risk is greatest during the third trimester (60 - 81% chance of the fetus becoming infected as well during that stage of pregnancy) [10].
How do I Know if My Cat Has This?
You don't. Most cats do not show symptoms from the infection, and for an uplifting note cats DO become immune to the disease as a result of exposure. So even if your cat had the parasite, it probably doesn't now [11].
This post is not meant to make you worry about cats either (none of this is kitty's fault!), but rather to point out that there are some very widespread infections out there that many of us have (maybe me?) and we may not even know it. The complications surrounding pregnancy make things even more confusing because of the timing requirement of infection and the total lack of symptoms most of the time in the parent. It's an odd and interesting infection. I hope that this short post has taught you something that you didn't know about before :)
Sources
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3109627/
- https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/glossary.html
- http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0090203
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3035534/
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19916846
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27046307
- https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James_Ajioka/publication/26748112_Genetic_diversity_of_Toxoplasma_gondii_in_animals_and_humans/links/00b7d524e9edd9cad9000000.pdf
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17085743
- https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4046541/
- https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001360.htm
- http://pets.webmd.com/cats/toxoplasmosis-cats#1
All Non Cited Images Are From Pixabay.com or Flickr.com And Are Available Under Creative Commons Licenses
Any Gifs Are From Giphy.com and Are Also Available for Use Under Creative Commons Licences
If you like this work, please consider giving me a follow: @justtryme90. I am here to help spread scientific knowledge and break down primary publications in such a way so as to cut through the jargon and provide you the main conclusions in short (well compared to the original articles at least!) and easy to read posts.
As a future MD, I must add something. The oocysts need time to "activate", usually about a day. So if you clean after your kitty everyday, the poop is not dangerous anymore! :D Great post, I would love to see more medical stuff on Steemit.
Thank you for pointing this out!
It is very nice! Thanks for your efforts to research these for us! I am a cat lover, but my cat had leaved me. I am considering to buy I new one. Luckily I saw your post before I made my decision. Now I am reconsidering my decision.
I wouldn't let this information dissuade you from getting another cat! There is nothing to be afraid of, its just something to know about.
wow. That was amazing. That logic of Toxoplasma gondii transferring from mice,bird>cat>poop>human holds true. I didn't know that 50% of us mat have chronic infections that's insane. Anyways congratulations for another great post have a nice day buddy.
The sheer number of people with the infection was surprising to me too, however since it doesn't cause symptoms much of the time I guess I should have been less surprised. Thanks for reading man! Most appreciated.
While we're talking fun facts, toxoplasma gondii is the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis, which is the disease Daraprim treats, which is the drug Martin Shkreli is known for.
I don't have fancy references to back any of this up like @justtryme90, but as I recall from when I was reading into it last year, tons of people carry the parasite but very few people actually contract toxoplasmosis, unless they're immunocompromised, such as in HIV patients. (or maybe lupus, because it's always lupus)
Hence why a lot of media outlets were reporting "drug company hikes price on drug used to treat HIV patients", which I believe led to a huge misconception that this was a drug used to treat HIV/AIDS itself.
Or something to that effect. I'm sure if this was Reddit, someone who knew the exact science would correct me, Cunningham's Law and all.
If you carry Toxoplasma gondii then you HAVE toxoplasmosis. It's just that toxoplasmosis is generally asymptomatic, you are indeed correct in that it causes a much bigger issue in immune compromised people.
Ugh. Whether or not there was a misconception surrounding the outrage Shkreli didn't do pharmaceuticals any favors in the battle of public perception.
As a side note you are also correct about pryimethamine (Daraprim) being used to treat toxoplasmosis, it isn't an AIDS medication, but a way to deal with one of the other complications of the sputtering immune system.
Fair call.
For me I was fascinated by the phenomenon of how that story went viral, and how the facts were presented and re-presented, essentially mutating as the facts became more blurred. I feel like journalists are being a little more responsible with their reporting in 2017, both in terms of fact-checking and also in the way they present key facts. Likewise, people seem to be a lot better at google'ing things they see on Facebook to check accuracy.
But I digress... a lot.
Like a game of telephone. This is why I think better understanding of science, and a wide variety of other fundamental pieces of knowledge are becoming more and more a requirement for every day life. We can't always depend on others to get it right, we must have a basic understanding of things to know when we are being bullshitted.
But this does not apply to domestic cats that do not contact birds and mice?
They can't spontaneously get the disease no. They need to come in contact with a carrier.
Thank you, you reassured me. I hope I'm not a carrier:-)
I am sure if you have an inside kitty, that its a healthy and happy little furball :D
Whether or not you are a carrier, who knows. If you already are, its better than if you were to be with child and catch it. So maybe its better to already be a carrier.
You do this very well. The material was presented beautifully. Do you mind if I ask what you use as software to get it formatted this way. i.e. Do you use a word processor or other editor?
Upvoted already following and saved post to try and emulate presentation of content.
SDG
I just use markdown commands for my formatting.
https://github.com/adam-p/markdown-here/wiki/Markdown-Cheatsheet
No editor, I just learned the commands overtime so I can just type :D
Thanks for your kind words too, comments like this really make my day!
You are a magician if you are just doing this directly in the Steemit editor, especially keeping track of the citations. High quality posts.
I don't even use the steem editor per say, I just type it directly in mark down. I sometimes type things out in a word document first and then just copy paste it over, but thats more just for catching my typos (which I still miss a bunch of!)
I think any poop will cause me health problems lol
Well maybe. Though coffee beans pooped from a civet are considered a delicacy!
This things pooped beans.
Links definitely helping @justtryme90, another excellent post. Another reason I'm a dog person....lol
I'm a work in progress at this including enough background cited links thing (trying to make things interesting, yet also informative... also a tricky line to toe), thank you very much!
Truth be told, I'm also a dog person (I love the carefree sillyness of golden retrievers!) but I can't help but play with cats too. At heart I just love animals.
Interesting post. I have learnt something from you.
thanks.
Thank you for reading. Educating the world one small post at a time :)
Great information.
Cat do their job and eat rats but get this protozoa.
We also catch it from under cooked meat.
That means the animal that the meat came from was infected.
Doesn't that mean that the protozoa can live in muscle?
Does this have any effect on muscle performance over the years?
So much information raises more questions.
Thanks for sharing.
Yes the protozoa lives in the muscle. However it can only reproduce (aka make more of itself) in cats. It can just exist and live in other animals (like us) but not replicate.
Nature can be so strange.
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
Thank you for reading :)
Great post and very informative. Did not know that cat's pooh is that dangerous.
It isn't dangerous in that you should be afraid of it! It just carries this parasite (potentially), keep in mind that the infection of it is asymptomatic most of the time. It's just fascinating how prevalent it is, and that sometimes it appears to be related to issues. The world of biology is full of so vary many fascinating things. :)
Great post @justtryme90. glad to see your contribution to health community.
Thank you :)
A bit of related trivia: in Trainspotting, Tommy dies from toxoplasmosis, i.e. a T. gondii infection.
You know, its been a long time since I have seen Trainspotting. Thanks for pointing this out!
Amazing post.
Thank you!
Thanks, glad you liked it. :)
Cat is flushing out. Excellent animation.
Pretty smart kitty if you ask me :D
An infection that doesn't really affect, interesting. How much percentage of population gets infected? without noticing it, could it infect between human and human? ;o
Human to human transmission is not supposed to be a thing at least according to one of the articles I read. We can get the disease from our cats poop (maybe one does not properly wash their hands then touches food), however we mostly pick up the disease from eating meat that is under cooked and has the parasite in that muscle. ... so I guess you COULD get it from a person... were you a cannibal.
I'm so happy that we just picked up a stray to live in our house now...
This is not something to be worried about :)
Plus its not the cats fault. Blame biology for making them such a good host for this parasite.
I'm not worried really. I'm fascinated that it can on reproduce in feline animals. Did I read that correctly? Because my mind is blown.
Yep you read that correctly. It can live in a variety of mammals (us included) but its reproduction is restricted to felines.
https://msu.edu/course/zol/316/tgon2.htm
Makes me feel like I should clean the litter box more often.
Well thats probably not a bad idea, regardless of the T. gondii.
And let the cats go outside more often...It helps preventing they fill up the litterbox..apperantly not all the neighbours would be happy ;)
I wasn't aware of this but thank you for keeping us informed on this most serious topic!@justtryme90
Great and interesting read! Since I have always had cats around me, I'm pretty sure I'm one of the infected. I once read that infections can make you careless when for instances crossing the street or making sudden actions. I very much have that. I always tend to forget to look before crossing the street... luckily my hubby always gives me the saving hand hehe Have a great day!
I'm glad you liked it! Thank you for reading.
Very very good formatting. How much time do you put in the writing? If I were a cat owner I'd give this a detailed look. Seems you know what you are talking about.
It takes me a while to write the posts. I am actually not sure how many hours per post. I just do some research then write some stuff. Usually take a break, and return add more citations (for ease of following background). I publish probably a bit before I should, I usually continue editing a post the first day it's up too. Total time..?? More than 4 hours but less than 8 (when accounting for re reading and editing).
Damn never knew about this!
Great post :)
Thank you! If you learned something (even one small thing) then I am achieving my goals.
Yes I did! I never thought of such cute little cats carrying parasites :D
AWESOME Followed and upvoted ..!
Thanks, your art is really nice as well. :)
@justtryme90 thank u very much you are awesome
Thank you for reading.
I like it
Thanks!
Just one more reason to clean the kitty litter. Great post!
;)
Thank you very much!
Cats + Science = Upvote
:D how can one resist!
Thanks for reading my post man.
Excellent read from an owner of 2 cats. Now if you could just tell me how to get my cats to stop pooping in my garden, I would be forever grateful. Thanks
They are just trying to help your plants grow... they don't realize that it has the opposite effect :D
Thanks for the post,i found something new for myself
Thanks for commenting :)
Glad its interesting to you!
Making some edits, trying to get citational organization down. Still doesn't look clean. Organizing a post gets more difficult the more citations I put into it.