Archival ReportThe Relationship Between Toxoplasma Gondii Infection and Mood Disorders in the Third National Health and Nutrition Survey
Section snippets
Methods and Materials
To examine the relationship between prevalence of immunoglobulin G (IgG) antibodies to T. gondii and the diagnosis of selected mood disorders we used data from NHANES III, a cross-sectional survey conducted between 1988 and 1994 by the National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The NHANES III was designed to obtain nationally representative statistics on health measures and conditions through household interviews, standardized physical examinations, and
Results
Characteristics of the study population are shown in Table 1. All percentages reported are weighted; the actual number of respondents is reported only to indicate sample size in each subgroup. Of the 7440 respondents included in this study, 1211 were seropositive for T. gondii with a weighted percent of 14.5 (95% confidence interval [CI]: 13.0–16.0).
As shown in Table 2, there was no statistically significant association between T. gondii seroprevalence and severe major depression (unadjusted
Discussion
The main finding in the group studied is that T. gondii antibody is not associated with major depression but is associated with bipolar disorder type I in which both manic and depressive features were reported. Strengths of the study include a large sample size with clearly defined racial and ethnic composition and appropriate adjustment for confounding demographic and other variables, including tobacco smoking. Moreover, the sample is community-based and not biased by selection of only
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2021, International Journal of Infectious DiseasesSeroprevalence of Toxoplasma gondii in the U.S.: Evidence from a representative cross-sectional survey.
2020, Parasitology InternationalCitation Excerpt :This study found that one in four NHANES participants who tested positive for T. gondii reported having been diagnosed with depression. Presently, there are fragmented and occasionally contradictory descriptions of the association between T. gondii and depression [20,21]. Studies demonstrate higher seroprevalence in depressed patients, and increased rates of mental deterioration [21,22].