Obesity may be contagious!

Jan 27 2009

According to a scientist in the U.S. obesity is contagious!

Professor Nikhil Dhurandhar says a common cold virus can interfere with our normal body processes and make us fat - he has reached this rather astonishing conclusion following ten years of research with both animals and humans into the virus, Adenovirus-36.

Professor Dhurandhar suggests the airborne "adenovirus" germ may be contributing to the obesity epidemic - the highly infectious cold-like virus is known to cause coughs, sore throats, diarrhoea and conjunctivitis.

Dr. Dhurandhar from the Pennington Biomedical Research Centre in Louisiana believes it could be one of the mechanisms which cause some people to gain weight more quickly.

Dr. Dhurandhar and his team of researchers say they have more than 1,000 patients whose obesity appears to be linked to infection with the virus.

Blood samples taken from patients attending an obesity clinic were tested for antibodies to Adenovirus-36 and it was found that 20% of the patients had encountered the virus at some point and were significantly heavier than their antibody negative counterparts.

Other research showed that obese people were nearly three times more likely to have the virus than a non-obese person and even amongst the non-obese group, those with the virus were heavier than average.

Obesity is currently a major concern to health experts in much of the developed world and the study presents an interesting angle to the issue.

According to Dr. Dhurandhar when the Adenovirus-36 virus reaches the fat tissue it replicates making more copies of itself and in the process increases the number of fat cells and this may explain why people gain weight when infected with the virus.

Dr. Dhurandhar says the virus lingers for up to three months, during which time it multiplies fat and is contagious to others and is possibly encountered in early chilhood.

He also says while there are many other reasons why people become overweight, his research suggests that this virus goes to the lungs and spreads to various organs such as the liver, kidney, brain and fat tissue.

Obesity experts say the virus is not the reason why there is a major epidemic of obesity but may be instead a small contributing factor and all avenues must be explored but the basic message remains that people need to eat less and exercise more.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) globally there are more than a billion overweight adults and a third of them are obese.

WHO says obesity rates have risen three-fold or more in the last two decades in some areas of North America, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific Islands, Australasia and China.