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Study Links Virus To Obesity

Obesity Epidemic Could Be Just That

By Mark Huffman
ConsumerAffairs.com

January 31, 2006

• CSPI Raps Nickelodeon Food Ads • New Study Links Inactivity to Desire for More Food • Researchers Suppress "Hunger Hormone" • Parents Can Shape Childrens' Eating Habits • Overweight Doesn't Always Mean Unhealthy • Exercise in a Pill? • Study: 86 Percent of Americans Could Be Obese by 2030 • Americans Becoming Even More Obese, CDC Says • New Guide Lists Calories in Beer, Wine, Cocktails • Experts Fact-Check 'McDonald's Diet' Story • Dementia Linked To Obesity • Study Ties Obesity, Inflammation to Heart Failure • Doctor Offers Antidote To 'Super-Size Me' Diet • Eating Disorders Widespread Among U.S. Women, Survey Finds • Obesity A More Costly Workplace Health Issue Than Smoking • A 'Healthy Weight' May Not Be So Healthy • Skipping Breakfast May Lead to Obesity • Obesity Blamed for Rising Stroke Rate in Women • Spanish Language TV Linked To Latino Child Obesity • Fast Food+Sedentary Lifestyle=Liver Damage • Artificial Sweeteners Linked to Weight Gain • Mississippi May Ban Restaurant Sales to the Obese • Eat Less or Exercise More? • Researchers Find 'Fat-Burner' Compounds • Obesity Linked to Decreased Seatbelt Use • Low-Calorie Food Prices Surge • Italian Restaurants Serve Up the Fat • Viral Infections May Promote Obesity • Brits Find Obesity Deadlier Than Smoking • Healthy Restaurants May Bring Out Bad Eating Habits • 'Bad Carbs' Not the Enemy, Researcher Argues • New Pill May Make Weight Loss Safer --- • Weight Loss News • Childhood Obesity

Here’s another excuse for being overweight – you might have a virus.

A study in the American Journal of Physiology-Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, reports a human virus has been shown to cause chickens to get fat. Some scientists have concluded that finding suggests the virus could contribute to human obesity as well.

Another factor, scientists say, is how fast obesity is spreading through the worldwide human population. The only thing that spreads as fast, they say, is an infectious disease.

"The nearly simultaneous increase in the prevalence of obesity in most countries of the world is difficult to explain by changes in food intake and exercise alone, and suggests that adenoviruses could have contributed," the authors say.

Scientists involved in the study gave chickens three types of human virus. They found that the chickens with a virus called Ad-37 became obese, even though they were on the same diet as chickens that remained at a normal weight.

Another virus, Ad-36, has already been linked to obesity in other types of test animals. Blood samples from overweight humans show a strong likelihood of carrying the antibodies for the virus. The authors say more research might establish a stronger link between viruses and obesity.

While some might dismiss the idea that you can "catch obesity," the authors say an infection link might explain a lot. For example, doctors have long been perplexed by the prevalence of obesity in the third world countries, existing along side starvation.

Some 127 million American adults are considered overweight, with nearly half classified as clinically obese. The Centers for Disease Control puts the price of dealing with obesity at about $78 billion.

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