Environmental risk factors for Toxoplasma gondii infections and the impact of latent infections on allostatic load in residents of Central North Carolina

Abstract Background Toxoplasma gondii infection can be acquired through ingestion of infectious tissue cysts in undercooked meat or environmental oocysts excreted by cats. This cross-sectional study assessed environmental risk factors for T. gondii infections and an association between latent infections and a measure of physiologic dysregulation known as allostatic load. Methods Serum samples from 206 adults in the Durham-Chapel Hill, North Carolina area were tested for immunoglobulin (IgG) responses to T. gondii using commercial ELISA kits. Allostatic load was estimated as a sum of 15 serum biomarkers of metabolic, neuroendocrine and immune functions dichotomized at distribution-based cutoffs. Vegetated land cover within 500 m of residences was estimated using 1 m resolution data from US EPA’s EnviroAtlas. Results Handling soil with bare hands at least weekly and currently owning a cat were associated with 5.3 (95% confidence limits 1.4; 20.7) and 10.0 (2.0; 50.6) adjusted odds ratios (aOR) of T. gondii seropositivity, respectively. There was also a significant positive interaction effect of handling soil and owning cats on seropositivity. An interquartile range increase in weighted mean vegetated land cover within 500 m of residence was associated with 3.7 (1.5; 9.1) aOR of T. gondii seropositivity. Greater age and consumption of undercooked pork were other significant predictors of seropositivity. In turn, T. gondii seropositivity was associated with 61% (13%; 130%) greater adjusted mean allostatic load compared to seronegative individuals. In contrast, greater vegetated land cover around residence was associated with significantly reduced allostatic load in both seronegative (p < 0.0001) and seropositive (p = 0.004) individuals. Conclusions Residents of greener areas may be at a higher risk of acquiring T. gondii infections through inadvertent ingestion of soil contaminated with cat feces. T. gondii infections may partially offset health benefits of exposure to the natural living environment

Cuisine by the Cut of One\u27s Trousers: Cookbook Marketing in Early Modern France

Contrary to what some culinary historians have asserted up until the last two decades, the French Renaissance did actually have a thriving trade in homegrown cookbooks. Printed editions of the Viandier, the French translation of Platina’s De honesta voluptate et valetudine, and the Sergent family of cookbooks inundated the sixteenth-century French print market for works on cookery. By analysing title pages, woodcuts, and prefatory remarks, this article suggests that cookbooks were being marketed to a wide spectrum of social stations and potential readerships, each representing contradictory desires. The early modern French banquet is thus a space whose contours can be adapted to fit a number of occasions, accommodating diners from all strata of society