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.” (more…)

3. What do people usually think when someone says that they are overweight because of genetics? There is usually the shaking of the head and rolling of the eyes exhibited by the listener. But wait. According to scientists from three major Universities in the UK, a variant of a gene known as the Fatso gene, or more kindly referred to as the FTO gene, could be responsible for some people having a predisposition to obesity and related problems such as diabetes. The gene was first discovered in certain chubby mice, when scientist were searching for markers that signaled increased vulnerability to type 2 diabetes. The FTO gene showed up there too. The study found that people carrying one copy of the FTO gene have a 30% increased risk of being obese compared to a person with no copies. However, a person carrying two copies of the gene has a 70% increased risk of being obese. So how much actual weight could these genes be responsible for? In the UK study, the estimated average increase was only about 7 pounds for a person with two copies compared to a similar person with no copies. (more…)