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ScienceDaily reports that:
Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a single-celled parasite that is happiest in a cat's intestines, but it can live in any warm blooded animal. Found worldwide, T. gondii affects about one-third of the world's population, 60 million of which are Americans. Most people have no symptoms, but some experience a flu-like illness. Those with suppressed immune systems, however, can develop a serious infection if they are unable to fend off T. gondii.
A healthy immune system responds vigorously to T. gondii in a manner that parallels how the immune system attacks a tumor.
"We know biologically this parasite has figured out how to stimulate the exact immune responses you want to fight cancer," said David J. Bzik, PhD, professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.
In response to T. gondii, the body produces natural killer cells and cytotoxic T cells. These cell types wage war against cancer cells. Cancer can shut down the body's defensive mechanisms, but introducing T. gondii into a tumor environment can jump start the immune system.
(Score: 4, Informative) by clone141166 on Friday July 18 2014, @03:59AM
Toxoplasma Gondii is a uniquely dangerous pathogen that has actually been in the news quite a lot previously for negative reasons.
Typically it lives in mice and cats and actually messes with the brains of mice to change their response when smelling cat urine from fear to attraction. This is done to increase the chances that the mouse will be eaten by a cat and thus allow T. Gondii to spread.
It has also been linked to increased self-directed violence and suicide in humans. It is very difficult to detect T. Gondii in adult humans, but a comprehensive study was performed in Denmark on 45,788 women by checking for its presence in newborn children and thereby asserting that the mother was infected with the pathogen.
Link to paper on the study in Denmark here:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22752117/ [nih.gov]
And Time magazine article on T. Gondii:
http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/03/are-cat-ladies-more-likely-to-attempt-suicide/ [time.com]
It's good that they have potentially figured out how to use T. Gondii's unique properties for a useful purpose, but I wouldn't recommend going out and getting yourself infected with it on purpose (it is next to impossible to get rid of after you have been infected).
The best ways to avoid this pathogen is to avoid eating uncooked meat and dispose of any fecal matter excreted by your felines within 24 hours (it actually takes 24 hours for the pathogen to become transmissible within cat fecal matter).
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday July 18 2014, @04:16AM
In very simplified terms, I've read that it makes men more aggressive and women more slutty.