Obese kids and AD-36: Is obesity caused by a virus?

© 2010-2015 Gwen Dewar, all rights reserved

Obesity rates among children are skyrocketing, and it's clear that many factors are involved.

Kids are eating more and exercising less. They might too be gaining weight because they opens in a new windowdon't sleep enough at night.

But what about contagion? Is it possible that some kids are getting fatter because they've been infected with a virus?

The concept has been dubbed "infectobesity" (Dhurandhar 2001) and information technology would take been dismissed as outlandish decades ago. But in recent years, researchers have discovered evidence that viruses contribute to all sorts of chronic medical conditions (Ewald 2002). Now they are adding obesity to the list, and the culprit of involvement is  adenovirus-36 (Advertizement-36).

Advertisement-36 is one of the many viruses that crusade the common common cold. But dissimilar other strains, Ad-36 has an alarming side effect. Add together it to a Petri dish of human stalk cells, and those cells begin making fat cells. Lots of fat cells.

The virus appears to speed upwardly the rate at which fatty cells develop. And information technology may make fatty cells abound larger, too.

Does this mean that man beings who are exposed to the virus will become fatter?

The archetype mode to answer such a question is with a randomized, double-blind study. Inject some people with adenovirus-36, and other people with saline solution. Follow upwards with years of observation and encounter who gets fatter.

Of course, there are major ethical problems with such a written report. And then researchers have pursued other lines of bear witness:

• In experiments on chickens, rodents, and monkeys, the animals exposed to adenovirus-36 got fatter—in some cases packing on more than four times equally much weight every bit did controls (Atkinson 2007; Dhurandhar et al 2002).
• In clinical studies conducted around the earth, researchers take plant that obese and overweight people are more likely to test positive for adenovirus-36 antibodies—show that they had been exposed to the virus in the past (Yamada et al 2012; Atkinson 2007).
• In tests of an adenovirus-36 vaccine, vaccinated and unvaccinated mice were both exposed to the live virus. Subsequently, the unvaccinated mice experienced a 17% increase in torso weight. They besides showed lower levels of inflammation (Na and Nam 2014).

And obese children?

Adenovirus-36 has been linked with child obesity in a multifariousness of studies (Parra-Rojas et al 2013). For example, in a written report of American children, 15 out of 67 obese kids tested positive for antibodies to the virus. Only 4 out of 57 normal weight children tested positive (Gabbert et al 2010).

And so obese kids were more likely to have been exposed to Advertizing. And that'due south not all. Obese children who tested positive were heavier than obese children who tested negative.

Main investigator Jeffrey B. Schwimmer explains in a press release video clip:

"When we looked only at obese children, those obese children with show of infection by adenovirus-36 weighed on average 35 pounds more than did obese children who did not accept bear witness of infection with this virus."

It's an interesting point, particularly considering the alternative hypothesis–that obese kids are more probable to get infected with Ad-36 because they have poorer allowed systems. If this were the case, it's not clear why obese children who are AD-36 positive should weigh more than obese children who are AD-36 negative.

The finding that Advertizement-36 antibodies are more mutual amidst obese children has replicated by researchers in Turkey (Cakmakliogullari et al 2014). In addition, meta-analyses of international studies have repeatedly confirmed an clan betwixt Advert-36 and obesity in both children and adults (Xu et al 2015).

Just many questions remain unanswered.

Unanswered questions

Some normal-weight kids exam positive for antibodies. Why aren't they obese also?

Perhaps they were exposed only recently and the effects haven't yet emerged. But it's also possible that the virus affects some people differently, or that some infections are more severe than others. And of course some people may work especially hard to fight the aggregating of fat. More than inquiry is needed.

Simply the example for infectobesity remains compelling. And the timing seems right. Equally Richard Atkinson notes, the virus was first discovered by researchers in 1978, only before the worldwide epidemic of obesity took off (Atkinson 2007).

Moreover, adenovirus-36 isn't the just virus associated with obesity in humans. Researchers in Republic of india found that obese people who tested positive for antibodies to the SMAM-1 virus were significantly heavier than obese people who tested negative (Dhurandhar et al 1997). More such viruses may be identified in the future.

Can nosotros practise anything about infectobesity?

Correct now, parents wishing to prevent infection accept few options simply the obvious ones: Teach kids to launder their hands, avoid touching their faces, and take other measures to avoid germs.

Only, as noted above, researchers are testing a new vaccine against adenovirus-36. In a few years, it may come on the market. An "obesity vaccine" may become a regular function of pediatric visits.

Until so, nervous skinny people should note that this research doesn't justify putting obese people in quarantine. Adenovirus-36 is a cold virus, and people are contagious when they are suffering from the cold symptoms–not months later when they've begun to gain weight. Every bit Jeffrey Schwimmer tells Scientific discipline News, "It's the skinny person with a cold you take to watch out for."

And perhaps we shouldn't resent this virus as well much. In many–but not all–studies, Advertizing-36 is also linked with lower cholesterol levels (Atkinson et al 2007; Na et al 2009). And for virtually of human being history, people were more often than not concerned with getting enough to eat. A virus that helped yous body store fat would have been a practiced thing.

Is Advert-36 one of the showtime human viruses known to benefit people—at to the lowest degree nether certain conditions? I wonder. As reader Simon Waters has reminded me, there are the viruses that benefit us indirectly, by making u.s.a. immune to other, closely related pathogens. But are there whatever other viruses that accept more than direct furnishings? I look forrad to finding out.

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Atkinson RL. 2007. Viruses as an etiology of obesity. Mayo Clin Proc. 82(10):1192-8.

Cakmakliogullari EK, Sanlidag T, Ersoy B, Akcali S, Var A, Cicek C. 2014. Are human adenovirus-five and 36 associated with obesity in children? J Investig Med. 62(five):821-4.

Dhurandhar NV. 2001. Infectobesity: Obesity of Infectious Origin. Periodical of Nutrition 131:2794S-2797S.

Dhurandhar NV, Kulkarni PR, Ajinkya SM, Sherikar AA, and Atkinson RL. 1997. Association of adenovirus infection with homo obesity. Obes Res. 1997 Sep;v(5):464-9.

Ewald PW. 2002. opens in a new windowPlague Fourth dimension: The New Germ Theory of Illness. New York: Anchor Printing.

Gabbert C, Donahue M, Arold J, and Schwimmer JB. 2010. Adenovirus 36 and Obesity in Children and Adolescents. Pediatrics. Published online September xx, 2010 (doi:10.1542/peds.2009-3362).

Na HN and Nam JH. 2014. Proof-of-concept for a virus-induced obesity vaccine; vaccination against the obesity agent adenovirus 36. Int. J. Obes. 38:1470–1474.

Na HN, Hong YM, Kim J, Kim HK, Jo I, and Nam JH. 2009. Association between human adenovirus-36 and lipid disorders in Korean schoolchildren. Int J Obes (Lond). 2010 Jan;34(1):89-93.

Parra-Rojas I, Del Moral-Hernández O, Salgado-Bernabé AB, Guzmán-Guzmán IP, Salgado-Goytia L, and Muñoz-Valle JF. 2013. Adenovirus-36 seropositivity and its relation with obesity and metabolic profile in children. Int J Endocrinol. 2013:463194.

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Xu MY, Cao B, Wang DF, Guo JH, Chen KL, Shi M, Yin J, Lu QB. Human being Adenovirus 36 Infection Increased the Gamble of Obesity: A Meta-Analysis Update. Medicine (Baltimore). 94(51):e2357.

Yamada T, Hara One thousand, Kadowaki T. 2012. Association of adenovirus 36 infection with obesity and metabolic markers in humans: a meta-analysis of observational studies. PLoS ONE. seven(7)e4203.

Content terminal modified 9/2015

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