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Is Childhood Cat Ownership A Risk Factor For Schizophrenia Later in Life?
Is Childhood Cat Ownership A Risk Factor For Schizophrenia Later in Life?
Schizophrenia Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/schres
a r t i c l e
i n f o
Article history:
Received 29 January 2015
Received in revised form 26 February 2015
Accepted 2 March 2015
Available online 17 April 2015
Keywords:
Schizophrenia
Bipolar disorder
Cat contact
Toxoplasmosis
Toxoplasma gondii
a b s t r a c t
Two previous studies suggested that childhood cat ownership is a possible risk factor for later developing
schizophrenia or other serious mental illness. We therefore used an earlier, large NAMI questionnaire to try
and replicate this nding. The results were the same, suggesting that cat ownership in childhood is signicantly
more common in families in which the child later becomes seriously mentally ill. If true, an explanatory
mechanism may be Toxoplasma gondii. We urge our colleagues to try and replicate these ndings to clarify
whether childhood cat ownership is truly a risk factor for later schizophrenia.
2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
In 1995 a study suggested that cat ownership during childhood
might be a risk factor for later developing schizophrenia (Torrey and
Yolken, 1995). The data came from a 1992 questionnaire lled out by
165 members of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI). At
that time, NAMI had approximately 170,000 members and consisted
almost exclusively of families in which a family member had been diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder (approximately
two-thirds) or bipolar disorder or severe depression, usually with psychotic features (approximately one-third) (Steinwachs et al., 1992).
The question asked whether at any time between the affected family
member's birth and age 10 there was a cat living in the house; 84/165
(50.9%) of the cases and 65/165 (39.4%) of the controls responded yes.
The controls were obtained by having a family friend, whose child had
not developed any mental illness, ll out an identical questionnaire.
The cat question was part of two pages of questions covering
breastfeeding, developmental milestones, coordination, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis. Although the cat question was statistically
signicant by itself [chi square = 4.4, p .036; odds ratio (OR) = 1.60
(1.002.53), mean (95% condence interval)], it was not signicant
following the application of the Bonferroni correction for the number
of questions asked.
Based on these initial ndings, a 1997 follow-up survey was undertaken (Torrey, et al., 2000). Trained interviewers at the Survey Research
Center, University of Maryland, carried out a 20 minute telephone
interview with subjects randomly selected from the NAMI membership
Corresponding author. Tel.: +1 301 571 2078.
E-mail address: torreyf@stanleyresearch.org (E. Fuller Torrey).
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.schres.2015.03.036
0920-9964/ 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
list; the refusal rate was 9%. Two controls for each case from families
without any serious mental illness were selected from the same
telephone exchange as the subjects and matched for age, sex and socioeconomic status; the refusal rate was 28%. The interview focused on the
perinatal and preadolescent childhood periods and included 19 major
variables, many of which included subsets, asking about the mother's
pregnancy, miscarriages/stillbirths, delivery, breast-feeding, developmental milestones and place of residence as well as exposure to dogs,
cats, other pets, and farm animals. Regarding family ownership of a
cat between the affected person's birth and age 13, 136/262 (51.9%) of
cases and 220/522 (42.1%) of controls responded yes [chi square =
6.7, p .01; OR = 1.48 (1.092.02)]. Dog ownership was more common
among the controls (78.8%) than among the cases (73.1%) although the
difference was not statistically signicant (p = .09).
Based on these two studies, we decided to analyze cat ownership
from a large unpublished NAMI survey carried out in 1982, 10 years before any data on cat ownership and mental illness had been published.
The issue is potentially important since cats are carriers, and the
denitive hosts, of Toxoplasma gondii. This parasite has been linked to
schizophrenia in a meta-analysis of 38 studies of T. gondii antibodies
(pooled OR = 2.71) (Torrey et al. 2012). In addition, T. gondii has been
shown to produce dopamine, thought to be increased in schizophrenia
(Gaskell, et al., 2009). There are also other reasons to suspect that
T. gondii may play a role in some cases of schizophrenia (Torrey and
Yolken, 2003; Yolken et al., 2009).
2. Materials and methods
At the NAMI annual convention in 1982, participants whose family
member was diagnosed with schizophrenia or schizoaffective disorder
Table 1
Cat ownership in NAMI families and controls.
1992 questionnaire
1997 survey
1982 questionnaire
Cases
Controls
84/165 (50.9%)
136/262 (51.9%)
1075/2125 (50.6%)
65/165 (39.4%)
220/522 (42.1%)
2065/4847 (42.6%)
p values are derived from chi square, 2 tailed; ORs shown as mean (95% CI).
3. Results
Funding source
The Stanley Medical Research Institute
Contributors
E. Fuller Torrey, MD Stanley Medical Research Institute, United States
Wendy Simmons, MA Stanley Medical Research Institute, United States
Robert H. Yolken, MD Stanley Laboratory of Developmental Neurovirology Johns
Hopkins University, School of Medicine, United States
Conict of interest
The authors have declared that there is no conict of interest in relation to the subject
of the study.
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the NAMI families who provided us with the information.
4. Discussion
References
Cat ownership in childhood has now been reported in three studies
to be signicantly more common in families in which the child is later
diagnosed with schizophrenia or another serious mental illness,
compared to families in which the child is not so diagnosed. Such a
nding, if conrmed in other groups, would suggest that cat exposure
in childhood is a risk factor for developing the disease.
Were NAMI members in the 1980s representative of families with a
member with schizophrenia? At that time, NAMI members tended to be
disproportionally middle and upper class socioeconomically. In addition, their affected family member tended to be more severely affected
than average, providing an incentive for the families to join the national
support group. It is possible that there was some overlap in the families
who responded to the 1982 and 1992 questionnaires since both were
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survey was drawn from a random selection of the entire NAMI
membership.
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