It's near-certain every family has one - a crazy cat lady. We're certainly all familiar with the type: Single women, generally older, who live with one or more cats, typically leftist, and who are a little mentally unstable (but I repeat myself).

However, some research has come to light that indicates there may be a correlation between owning cats and mental illness.

Australian researchers conducted an analysis of 17 studies published during the last 44 years, from 11 countries including the US and the UK.

"We found an association between broadly defined cat ownership and increased odds of developing schizophrenia-related disorders," explained psychiatrist John McGrath and fellow researchers, all from the Queensland Centre for Mental Health Research, in their study published last December.

Now, one might question the cause-effect chain here; is there something about owning a cat that might cause a schizophrenia-related disorder, or are people with schizophrenia-related disorders more likely to own cats? It turns out that a microorganism might be to blame - but the evidence for that is distinctly sketchy.

This idea that cat ownership could be linked to schizophrenia risk was proposed in a 1995 study, with exposure to a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii suggested as a cause. But the research so far has put forth mixed conclusions.

Studies have found that being around cats during childhood might make a person more likely to develop schizophrenia; however, not all studies have found an association.

In other words: "We don't know." And that's OK. That's how science works. A hypothesis was formed, and tested, and the results were inconclusive. It's not very satisfying but that's what sometimes happens. That doesn't mean that crazy cat ladies aren't a thing, as Republican vice-presidential candidate JD Vance observed; it just means that the cause-effect relationship isn't established, and it seems likely that slightly daffy older single leftist women who are dissatisfied with life happen to own cats. In fact, as a personal observation - I have not conducted a statistical study, mind you, this is merely a personal observation - the number of cats owned by the typical crazy cat lady correlates directly with the level of daffiness. The crazier the cat lady is, the more cats she owns, forming a self-reinforcing cycle.

I wonder if I can get a grant from the government to study this. Maybe, if the election goes how we hope it will, I could get the new vice president's support.

See Related: JD Vance Levels a Reporter Freaking Out Over His 'Cat Lady' Comments 

JD Vance Battles CNN Leftist Dana Bash, Refuses to Buy What She's Selling

That doesn't mean all single women who own cats are daffy. Our youngest daughter is single, owns a cat, but she has her mother's uncanny mental stability, an ironclad work ethic, and when in college she had to do a book report as part of a scholarship application, she did the report on Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged." (She didn't get the scholarship, but she was satisfied with defying the typical leftist bent in academia.)

With all that said, I maintain that a cat's natural habitat is a barn. As proof, all one must do is build a barn, equip it with feed and livestock - the natural uses to which barns are put - and that barn will spontaneously generate cats. No mental health issues are required, nor do any result from this phenomenon. You can't get much more natural than that.