Can Viruses Cause Obesity?
2. Adenoviruses are a group of contagious viruses responsible for many ailments in humans. Many of which appear as respiratory and gastrointestinal infections in children. But can they cause childhood obesity? Well, according to researchers at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, when they injected chickens with certain adenovirus strains the chickens gained excess fat compared to chickens that were not injected.
One of the leading researchers in the field of “infectobesity” is Dr. Nikhil Dhurandhar of the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge, who coined the phrase. The term “infectobesity” refers to obesity of infectious origin and the emerging field of medical research that studies the relationship between disease-causing organisms, such as viruses and bacteria and weight gain. Dr. Dhurandhar and his team have reported seven viruses that cause obesity in animal test groups. “We reported the first human virus, an adenovirus (Ad-36), which causes adiposity in chickens, rodents and non-human primates and shows association with human obesity. Our in-vivo and in-vitro data show that Ad-36 increases adiposity, lowers serum lipids, increases insulin sensitivity and preadipocyte differentiation.”
While none of the tests are conclusive, Human studies, including comparisons of twins, suggest that obese people are indeed more likely to harbor antibodies for a particular virus known as adenovirus-36. Further studies by Dr. Dhurandhar showed that Adenovirus-36 appeared to cause stem cells in fat tissue to develop into adipocytes rather than other forms of cell.
The finding open up the possibility of preventing at least some obesity by targeting the virus with a vaccine. We have flu shots; could an obesity vaccine be the next step? Perhaps, but as Dr. Dhurandhar added, “fat people shouldn’t take the finding to mean that they can blame their condition on a virus. This only explains how you got there,” he said. “It doesn’t absolve you of the responsibility to take care of yourself.”
The lead researcher in the University of Wisconsin study, Leah Whigham, admits “There is still much to learn about how these viruses work. There are people and animals that get infected and don’t get fat. We don’t know why,” she said.
While it would be nice to dream of the day when you could just add an “infectobesity” shot to your children’s routines vaccine regiment, It isn’t a sure thing yet and we’ll just have to wait and hope till that day.
Next time – What role does genetics play in childhood obesity?
Tags: childhood obesity, obesity, weight gain
