A Parasite Is Linked With Suicide Risk

In a large prospective study of some 46,000 women in which levels of antibodies to the parasite Toxoplasma gondii were measured at childbirth,  researchers linked infection with the parasite to suicide during the subsequent decade or so after they gave birth. The lead scientist was Marianne Pedersen, M.Sc., of Aarhus University in Denmark. The results were reported online this month in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

In a previous prospective study conducted with the same large cohort of women, and in which levels of antibodies to T. gondii were also measured at childbirth, Pedersen and her team linked infection with T. gondii to the subsequent development of schizophrenia. For more information about this study, see Psychiatric News.

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