Cats and mental illness - brief analysis of the research

One has to wonder why Dr. E Fuller Torrey has, for thirty years,
continued to promote his theory that cats cause schizophrenia and other
psychiatric illness. He claims to simply be a believer and on a
scientific quest, but I don't buy it.

My opinion, after doing some research on the subject, is fairly simple
on the whys: it makes good headlines. It's controversial, and the media
loves something so simple, so black and white: schizophrenia is not a
complex spectrum of disorders, and its cause is not found in
contemporary theory - that the root of the disease is likely a complex
interaction of genetics and environment. Torrey can make a wild claim,
backed up by no evidence, and the media runs with it: cats cause
schizophrenia.

What leads me to this opinion is a piece of his "research" that is
conveniently ignored in media stories: the handful of studies that do
show a higher level of antibodies to Toxoplasma gondii in schizophrenics
also show higher levels of herpes and cytomegalovirus.

Saying that herpes causes schizophrenia isn't as fun as blaming it on
cats. It's also safer to blame cats, because they don't have much of a
voice and aren't likely to show up at Torrey's house with protest signs.

For 30 years, it's been his obsession, despite his protests that he
loves cats. And for 30 years, Torrey and collaborator, virologist Robert
Yolken, have tried to prove infectious agents, notably viruses during
pregnancy, cause mental illness. They continue to come up with very
little. The best they can do is point to studies that show untreated
schizophrenics have a higher incidence of antibodies to Toxoplasma
gondii than schizophrenics taking medication, or persons without
schizophrenia.

The same studies show similar rates of herpes virus and cytomegalovirus.

Other studies show schizophrenics more likely to be born in winter or
spring, though Torrey's own study in Australia showed no connection.
More studies have shown schizophrenia to appear more often in urban
areas, as well as in crowded households.

These factors helped convince Torrey that an infectious agent played a
key role in the development of schizophrenia.

In reality, despite the claims of advertisements on TV, or flippant
claims by psychiatrists, nobody knows what causes mental illness. It's
called biological, but the evidence for that remains as elusive as
evidence showing viruses cause the illness. E Fuller Torrey gets more
press by being the kook who says cats cause schizophrenia. And book
deals.

His first clue, he has said, was the realization that cats were
introduced into modern society as pets in the late nineteenth century,
the same time that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder went from being
rare diseases to common ones. He believed that cats were the culprit.

Since 1953, 19 studies of Toxoplasma gondii antibodies in persons with
schizophrenia and other severe psychiatric disorders have been
published. Of those, 11 reported a statistically significant difference
between the mentally ill persons and controls. In other words, slightly
more than half said there *were* differences and the others said there
weren't. That's hardly convincing evidence.

Torrey has nearly 400 brains stored in 55 freezers in his "Brain Bank,"
part of the Stanley Foundation. Torrey examined 51 postmortem brains and
found herpes virus 6 in two of them, but no Toxoplasma gondii at all.

Key points:

--Almost half the studies that have been done have NOT shown any
correlation between mental illness and the presence of Toxoplasma gondii
antibodies

--In studying 51 brains, he found no Toxoplasma gondii

--Torrey has been researching this for thirty years, and has yet to
provide any evidence of cause and effect

--The studies have also shown similar incidences of herpes and
cytomegalovirus in persons with schizophrenia, but these results have
largely been ignored...because they don't fit in with blaming cats

--The studies showing a difference in antibodies also show that
schizophrenics taking antipsychotic drugs have a lower rate of
antibodies, leading Torrey to make claims that this class of drugs may
actually fight viral infection. If there were any evidence of that,
wouldn't the drug companies be rushing to find another market for their
antipsychotic medications? If these drugs had any effect on viruses, the
drug companies could make billions by remarketing the drugs.

--No mention of other societies (ancient Egypt) that have had cats, and
whether or not they had psychotic disorders.

--A least one-third of the world may have contracted toxoplasmosis

--A study in the 90s of Czech soldiers and students (funded by Torrey's
Stanley Foundation) claimed toxomplasmosis made men more aggressive,
jealous and suspicious, while it raised the intelligence of women and
apparently caused them to spend more on clothes and engage in
promiscuous behavior



Links:

good article on toxoplasmosis, says it's usually caused by undercooked
meat:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis

NY Times Magazine: (date unknown, but appears to be about 2000-2001)
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/ep/Schizovirus.html

Medline, medical journal abstracts:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...db=pubmed&dopt
=Abstract&list_uids=14725265&query_hl=2

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...db=pubmed&dopt
=Abstract&list_uids=14991372&query_hl=2

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...db=pubmed&dopt
=Abstract&list_uids=12505139&query_hl=2

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...db=pubmed&dopt
=Abstract&list_uids=12837520&query_hl=2

Birth season study:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q...db=pubmed&dopt
=Abstract&list_uids=9088486

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