Impaired health status and increased incidence of diseases in Toxoplasma-seropositive subjects – An explorative cross-sectional study
Flegr, J. Escudero, D. Q.
Parasitology, 143, 1974-1989, doi:10.1017/S0031182016001785, 2016
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parasites in tissue cysts located mainly in immunoprivileged organs was long considered asymptomatic. Recently, many
studies have shown that latent
Toxoplasma
infections could have serious impacts on human health. Here we ran a
cross-sectional study in a population of 1486 volunteers. The results showed that 333 infected subjects scored
worse than 1153 controls in 28 of 29 health-related variables. Similarly, they reported higher rates of 77 of a list of 134
disorders reported by at least 10 participants of the study. Toxoplasmosis was associated most strongly with musculoskel-
etal (
τ
= 0·107,
P
< 0·0005), followed by neurological (
τ
= 0·088,
P
< 0·0005), immune (
τ
= 0·085,
p
< 0·0005), metabolic
(
τ
= 0·079,
P
< 0·0005), respiratory (
τ
= 0·068,
P
= 0·0001), allergic (
τ
= 0·053,
P
= 0·004), digestive system (
τ
= 0·052,
P
= 0·004) and mental health disorders (
τ
= 0·050,
P
= 0·008). Results of the present cohort study, along with the previous
data from many case-control studies or ecological studies suggest that latent toxoplasmosis represents a large and so far
underrated public health problem