Physical and Mental Health Status in Toxoplasma-Infected Women before and 3 Years after They Learn about Their Infection: Manipulation or Side-Effects of Impaired Health?

Abstract

Latent toxoplasmosis is known to be associated with specific changes in animal and human behavior and human personality. Many toxoplasmosis-associated shifts, such as an extroversion-introversion shift or a trust-suspicion shift, go in opposite directions in men and women. The stress coping hypothesis suggests that such behavioral effects of toxoplasmosis are side effects of chronic stress caused by lifelong parasitosis and associated health disorders. Several studies have searched for, and typically found, indices of impaired health in infected subjects. However, subjects were always aware of their toxoplasmosis status, which could influence obtained data and cause false-positive results of the studies. Here we searched for differences in physical and mental health status among 39 Toxoplasma-infected and 40 Toxoplasma-free female university students who completed identical questionnaires (N-70, and anamnestic questionnaire), before and 3 years after they were informed of their toxoplasmosis status. Our results showed that infected women showed indices of poorer health status, not only after, but also before they were informed of their infection. In accordance with previously published data, these indices were more numerous and stronger in Rh-negative than in Rh-positive women. Present results suggest that observed indices of poorer health and symptoms of chronic stress in Toxoplasma-infected subjects are real. Due to its high (30%) prevalence, toxoplasmosis could represent an important factor for public health.

Lower performance of Toxoplasma-infected, Rh-negative subjects in the weight holding and hand-grip tests

“…The existence of significant Rh-Toxo (or Trial-Rh-Toxo) interactions agreed with the results of certain performance tests [ 27 , 28 ] and of certain health status studies [ 13 , 29 ] published earlier. We confirmed that Toxoplasma -infected, Rh-negative subjects expressed worse results in performance tests, while this was not always true for Rh-positive subjects.…”

“…Similarly, Toxoplasma infection is associated with different phenotypical outputs in Rh-positive and Rh-negative subjects. The Rh-positive subjects, especially Rh-positive heterozygotes, seem to be fully or partly protected against many of the effects of toxoplasmosis, such as personality changes [ 26 ], decreased psychomotor performance [ 27 , 28 ], and impaired physical and mental health [ 29 ]. The strongest effect of latent toxoplasmosis reported until now, the excessive weight gain of Toxoplasma infected women in the 16 th week of their pregnancies (4.12 kg vs 2.44 kg, N = 152, 25 Toxoplasma -infected), was observed only in Rh-negative mothers [ 30 ].…”

Negative Effects of Latent Toxoplasmosis on Mental Health

“…We did not control for the effect of the Rh phenotype in the present study. It has been shown recently, however, that Rh negative women express increased, while Rh-positive women express decreased depression, obsession, and several other facets of neuroticism measured with the N-70 inventory (33). Similarly, the ecological study performed on the set of 65 countries (34) and the cross-sectional study performed on the population of 3,130 people (35) demonstrated worse physical health in Rh negative subjects than in Rh-positive subjects.…”

Depressiveness and Neuroticism in Bartonella Seropositive and Seronegative Subjects – Preregistered Case-Controls Study

“…It is also known that toxoplasmosis affects Rh-positive and Rh-negative subjects differently (Flegr et al, 2008;Novotná et al, 2008;Flegr et al, 2010;Kaňková et al, 2010b). For example, the positive association between toxoplasmosis and six of seven N-70 subscales of neuroticism has been recently observed only in Rh-negative women (Šebánková and Flegr, 2017). Again, to detect such a 3-way (and possibly even 4-way, bartonellosis-toxoplamosis-Rh-Sex) interaction, a much larger set of participants should be obtained and analyzed.…”