Are Toxoplasma-infected subjects more attractive, symmetrical, or healthier than non-infected ones? Evidence from subjective and objective measurements
Are Toxoplasma-infected subjects more attractive, symmetrical, or healthier than non-infected ones? Evidence from subjective and objective measurements
Background Parasites are among the main factors that negatively impact the health and reproductive success of organisms. However, if parasites diminish a host’s health and attractiveness to such an extent that finding a mate becomes almost impossible, the parasite would decrease its odds of reproduc...
An interesting paper where the researchers conducted a cross sectional survey of people aged 18 years and above in Mexico. They divided people into two groups, one group who had toxoplasma infection in the past, and the other who did not, and for each group they measured their "attractiveness" (using other people) and also some parameters of "health" and "well being" and having good looks (such as "width of the face divided by height of the face", so the lower the value, the more attractive they are and so on), and for women measured their BMI. They found that those who had toxoplasma infection had "better looks" and scored high on "attractiveness" measures. If you read the paper, (free to read the full text), can you identify how many errors there are? What are they? Common sense, you do not need to be expert on anything on beauty or biology but if you are, even better. :-)