Owning a Cat Could Double Your Risk of Schizophrenia, Research Suggests

Science Alert ^ | 16 Nov 2025 | Rebecca Dyer

[mairdie]

Cats - Segovia - Bach
https://youtu.be/1u_8wtJCM8M

[Gary from Dayton]

I have 3 too. Looks like I’m in trouble.

[alloysteel]

Cat ladies are in danger, they keep the cats near at hand, sleeping and awake. Barn cats maintain a decent interval.

[arthurus]

Are cause and effect being confused here?

[piasa]

It may be that people who have schizophrenia are much more likely to choose a cat - an easily obtained, easy to care for, affordable animal that will give them attention and which they can keep indoors and never have to walk outside - as a pet.

And that this research comes from Australia where they have a heightened animosity towards non-native invasive species like rabbits, camels and cats and so, a need to deter people from breeding cats for the pet trade.

That said, cats do have the ability to biochemically alter the behavior of rodents.

[SecondAmendment]

My cat is safe, he has been raised by my dogs.

[fwdude]

The study is bogus. Over a third of all households have a cat as a pet. Too broad of a study population to mean anything.

Might as well try to correlate those who drink plain water to schizophrenia.

[piasa]

A lot of nutjobs here in Florida favor reptiles.

[Twotone]

Do any of these people having anything better do do?

---

Gotta figure out something to do to get that gubbmint research grant.

So many dollars wasted on stupid stuff.

[mewzilla]

I think this is a canine plot to usurp our feline overlords!

[Allegra]

[wardaddy]

More that mentally ill folks may have a cat than causative

Id like to see similar stats on reptile owners

[Ben Dover]

A couple of years ago they said cats want to kill you. Now they want to make you go insane before they kill you.

[mewzilla]

Oh, I had to look. Guess what's in the pipeline...

Immunogenicity and Protective Efficacy of a Recombinant Toxoplasma gondii GRA12 Vaccine in Domestic Cats

Immunogenicity of an in-silico designed multi-epitope DNA vaccine encoding ROP21 and ROP29 of Toxoplasma gondii against both acute and chronic toxoplasmosis in BALB/c mice

[Cincinnatus.45-70]

Do a life long srptudy of identical twins. One has a cat or cats, the other never comes in contact with a cat. That might get me to believe that owning a cat is not a sign of a mental issue.

[Dutch Boy]

Double is a relative risk. The important number is the absolute risk. If the absolute risk is miniscule, a doubling of it will also be miniscule.

[HereInTheHeartland]

Good people have dogs .
Others have cats

[9YearLurker]

A “sign” is not necessarily a cause.

[Wuli]

"Keep in mind that this is the same “science” that says a man can “become a woman. “

Without suggesting this study proves anything or not, there is nothing that qualifies it as "the same science" that says a man can become a woman. There may be legitimate critiques of the study, but that claim is not one of them.

[TangoLimaSierra]

Begs the question: Which came first the schizophrenia or the cat.