Author: Roddick
In the middle of summer, brine a few pounds of flavored shrimp, on a small barbecue and a big beer, watching the players on the screen sweat, they were spicy straight out of the sweat. This is exactly the real-time picture of many people during the European Championship.
"Win the clubhouse car, lose the sea work." Although many people may not like to play football and do not look at the ball much, when it comes to predicting the outcome of football, it is often two eyes.
But prediction is not easy, because football is round and anything can happen.
However, in 2010, a neurologist, Professor House, wrote an article in Slate magazine predicting the outcome of the 8 knockout matches of the World Cup at that time, and winning all of them!
Screenshot of the slate website
He is not predicted by the rankings of the teams, the strength of the football or the metaphysics, but only by the rate of a parasite infection in each participating country.
Using toxoplasma to guess the outcome of a ball game?
His source of interpretation was Toxoplasma gondii, believing that countries with high infection rates would win the race. After predicting the outcome of the quarter-finals, the authors looked back at the 2006 World Cup and found that seven of the eight games in the first round of the quarter-finals that year followed this pattern, and the remaining brazil vs Ghana match also had high rates of toxoplasmosis infection in both countries.
In addition to this, the order of the top 25 fifa rankings in 2010 and the ranking of Toxoplasma infection rates have striking similarities: Brazil (67%), Argentina (52%), France (45%), Spain (44%) and Germany (43%).
According to statistics, these teams have won eight of the past ten World Cups. Only Spain was the only team that had not won the World Cup, but the author did not expect that the World Cup champion that year would be Spain.
Why is toxoplasmosis infection rate correlated with the competitive level of a football team? The author also gives his own inferences. His speculation was actually based on a document.
The literature found that Toxoplasma gondii infection enhanced the genes involved in testosterone expression, resulting in higher levels of testosterone secretion expression in infected men. Testosterone is a hormone that can improve the body's tolerance and explosiveness.
Screenshot of the reference
Professor House said that FIFA's drug ban regulations include drugs that increase the body's testosterone hormone levels. However, Toxoplasma gondii infection is not a transient effect, but the result of a long-term manifestation. So high levels of testosterone due to Toxoplasmosis infection may be a grey area for FIFA examinations.
But then again, Professor House's articles are not published in academic journals but in a science and technology journal, and they don't have much academic gold content.
His hypothesis also has big limitations: The 2006 World Cup winner Italy had a 33 percent infection rate of Toxoplasma gondii. In addition, the backward public health facilities in African countries can also make toxoplasmosis infection rates high, but football teams from highly infected countries such as Gabon (71%) and Côte d'Ivoire (60%) have not achieved much. This hypothesis also does not explain the strong football strength of countries with low toxoplasma infection rates such as South Korea and Japan.
Professor House also said in the article that his speculation is only for interest, but Toxoplasma gondii is definitely not so simple, and he believes that this parasite is quietly changing humans and even the whole world in an unknown way.
Approximately 1/3 of the world's population or potential infection
Toxoplasma gondii, full name Toxoplasma gondii. As an opportunistic pathogen with a complex life history, it includes 5 morphologies of trophoblasts, capsulars, fissomycetes, gametophytes, and oocysts, the first two of which are found in the intermediate and final hosts, and the last three in the final host. The intermediate host includes reptiles, fish, insects, birds, mammals and other animals and humans, while the final host has cats and felines.
So although this parasite is capable of infecting many mammals, it can only complete its life cycle in felines. It can also parasitize almost all nucleated cells except red blood cells.
Screenshot of toxoplasma gondii life history
In addition, Toxoplasma gondii has a very high potential infection rate worldwide, with national screening reports in 88 countries and estimating that about 1/3 of the world's population is positive for toxoplasma gondii seroantib antibodies. The latest seroepidemiological analysis in China shows that the positive rate of antibodies toxoplasma gondii in the general population is 8.20%.
Parasite infection rates in some countries (Source: References)
Formosaurus has the ability to infect almost all warm-blooded animals and is extremely infectious. There are a large number of potentially infected people worldwide. Although previous studies have found that chronic infections of Toxoplasma gondii are considered asymptomatic in immunocompetent people. But there are still many medical scientists who think newly about Toxoplasma gondii.
So much so that a theory has brewed: toxoplasma gondii latent infection may subtly influence a range of human behaviors and tendencies.
Are Toxoplasma gondii really affecting humans?
In our country, Toxoplasma gondii has a name full of religious and mysterious overtones, the three corpse worms.
The name evolved from the Taoist method of flying into immortality by slashing three corpses, and Taoism believes that there are insects in the human body, known as the three corpses, which control the desires of ordinary people. In "Laughing Proud of the Jianghu", Dongfang Undefeated uses the Three Corpses Brain God Dan to control the congregation, and if the antidote cannot be taken in time, the Three Corpses Worm will enter the brain.
Folklore obviously cannot support an academic inference, and the real academic basis is medical research.
Current animal studies have found that infection with Toxoplasma gondii does alter an animal's daily behavior, making it more eager to explore and take risks.
In January 2020, researchers at the University of Geneva in Switzerland found that Toxoplasma gondii infection made rats more eager to explore and eliminated fear of predators. In the predator avoidance trial, mice infected with Toxoplasma gondii preferred to leave the isolation chamber containing their own odor and spend more time exploring the isolation chamber filled with the smell of predators. In the maze experiment, mice infected with Toxoplasma gondii also exhibited abnormal behavior that was not afraid of predators.
Mouse experimental flow (Source: Reference)
The researchers believe that the immune response caused by toxoplasma gondii cysts in the brains of mice is the basis for aggressive behavior in mice. The study found that cysts are roughly evenly distributed in the mouse cortex (the outer layer of the brain). Genetic analysis of brain tissue also revealed that Toxoplasma gondii continued to alter transcription of host immune-related genes, with the number of cysts and levels of inflammation positively correlated with the degree of change in behavior in infected mice.
Now that the effects of Toxoplasma gondii in mouse brains have been demonstrated, what about humans who also act as intermediate hosts?
There is some literature that studies the correlation between Toxoplasma gondii and human mental illness. Two meta-analyses published in 2012 found that patients with schizophrenia were 2.7 times higher than controls in the positive detection rate of toxoplasmosis antibodies.
One of the meta-analyses
A representative study of 7440 people in the United States found that Toxoplasma gondii was 2.4 times more likely to be infected than the general population in people with a history of mania and depressive symptoms (bipolar disorder type 1).
In terms of pathogenesis, Researchers in the United Kingdom have found that Toxoplasma gondii may affect the production of human dopamine, and secrete related amino acid-based enzymes to affect the brain, causing schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
But other researchers have objected, such as a birth cohort study of 837 people that specifically tested whether toxoplasmosis is associated with impaired human brains and behaviors (neuropsychiatric disorders, poor impulse control, personality and neurocognitive deficits). But there were no significant differences in all the results.
The relevance of Toxoplasma gondii and psychiatric disorders also requires more high-quality literature certification.
The mystery is being unveiled
At present, the clinical research of Toxoplasma gondii is not only related to psychiatric diseases, but also the addition of tumors. In fact, as early as the 1970s, researchers have found that chronic Toxoplasma infection has a significant inhibitory effect on solid tumors in mice. China also has surveys showing that the antibody positive rate of cancer patients (16.8%) is higher than that of the general population. The value of Toxoplasma gondii in clinical research is clearly only the tip of the iceberg.
As the professor who predicted a ball game with toxoplasma went viral and said in an interview: Game prediction is just a hobby for fans. He hopes that in addition to learning "scientific sports lottery", everyone can also pay more attention to small bugs.
"Toxoplasma has been present in the human world since humans raised cats, and studying this ancient and mysterious bug will bring us great value." (Curator: Origami)
Acknowledgements: This article has been professionally reviewed by Wang Zhihuan, a master's student in pathogenic biology at the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
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Source: Lilac Garden