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- Excerpt:
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- "Obesity has doubled during the past decade and
doctors and nutritional experts say that if the number of heavyweights
continues to grow at the current rate, almost the entire population will
be obese by 2010."
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- Now...take a look at this...
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- Obesity Virus Is Linked To Weight Problems In Humans
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- By Marilynn Marchione - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel From
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer 4-18-97 From: http://www.ioa.com/~dragonfly/fatvirus.html
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- A virus known to cause obesity in animals has been tied
to weight problems in humans, raising the possibility that some people
"catch" obesity and that, in some cases, it could be an infectious
disease.
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- University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers presented
the findings yesterday at the Experimental Biology meeting in New Orleans.
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- Their preliminary study found that 15 percent of obese
people have antibodies to the virus, indicating they were exposed to it,
but that no people of average weight did.
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- "This is the first link of a human virus with human
obesity," said Nikhil Dhurandhar, a research scientist who conducted
the study with Professor Richard Atkinson, an endocrinologist and nationally
known obesity expert.
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- It is one of the most significant findings in the obesity
field in years, and it opens a new area of research and potential treatment.
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- "The implications are enormous," said John
Foreyt, a psychologist at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston who specializes
in the behavioral aspects of obesity.
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- He called the research "startling" and "potentially
a real breakthrough" in helping explain why 26 percent of American
adults were obese in 1980 but 35 percent or more are now.
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- "People are still struggling with why this enormous
increase in obesity" has occurred, because diet, sedentary lifestyles,
genetic predispositions and metabolism problems don't explain the whole
trend, Foreyt said.
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- Atkinson agreed. "This increase is the type of
pattern that might occur with a new infectious disease, as has been seen
with the AIDS virus," he said.
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- "Here we have the possibility that obesity is a
viral disease," he said, adding that it may give people ammunition
to fight for insurance coverage for weight-loss treatment because they
could argue: "I've got a reason. I'm not just a fat slob."
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- The notion of obesity as an infectious disease is unconventional,
Atkinson said, but he added, "Fifteen years ago if you said ulcers
were due to bacteria, people would have said you were nuts," and yet
that's now known to be the case.
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- The mechanism by which the virus might cause or contribute
to obesity isn't known.
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- "Anything I'd say would be speculative," Atkinson
said. "It's a provocative thing, and we've got a lot of work to do."
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- An infectious disease scenario also might explain why
some people are lean in life.
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- "We see people who become obese in their 20s, 30s,
or 40s all the time," he said.
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- Before now, five animal viruses were known to cause obesity
in animals, but no human virus had been implicated.
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- The study involved adenovirus 36, or Ad-36. There are
more than 50 adenoviruses, including many that cause the common cold.
They're transmitted through the air and person-to-person contact.
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- "There's so much we don't know about this, but it
doesn't appear to be a very common virus," Atkinson said.
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- The research was conducted in two parts. First, lab
animals were injected with Ad-36 to test the theory that it could cause
obesity.
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- "Animals become fat and surprisingly have low cholesterol
and triglycerides," the opposite of what you'd expect to find, Dhurandhar
said.
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- Next, they tested 199 people -- 154 obese and 45 lean
-- for antibodies to Ad-36. About 15 percent of the obese people had the
antibodies, but none of the people of average weight did.
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- Nearly 30 other factors that might explain weight differences
between the two groups -- age, family history or obesity, diseases such
as diabetes, kidney and liver function, and so on -- were compared.
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- "Nothing showed up to be different" except
the antibodies to Ad-36, Atkinson said.
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- The researchers have received approval of a grant from
the National Institutes of Health to study Ad-36 in more detail. They hope
to start in about six months, Atkinson said.
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- _____
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- If anyone has seen anything further on this study, please
let us know.
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