Infectobesity: is obesity transmitted through a common viral infection?

[salvorhardin]

Despite a certain number of limitations such as some heterogeneity among the studies, or lack of information about any kind of medication that could have contributed to obesity, the authors consider the results of their meta‑analysis as quite robust and tend to confirm the message the literature has been spreading for a while now: people who test positive for adenovirus 36 are more prone to weight gain and obesity than those that have never encountered the virus in their life. But as this work included observational cross‑sectional studies only, there is still the possibility that overweight or obese people may actually be more susceptible to this viral infection for some reason.

In addition, given that there does not appear to be an association between Ad36 and metabolic markers, infection may be linked with accumulation of relatively benign subcutaneous fat, which highlights the important distinction between adiposity and metabolic health. Anyway, the relationship between Ad36 and obesity in animals, including monkeys, is causal and Ad36 is increasingly shown to be able to impact lipogenesis in human cells. These findings suggest that further investigation may at some point lead to the demonstration of an infectious cause for weight gain and obesity in humans as well, at least to some extent.

Full post: http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2012/10/03/infectobesity-is-obesity-transmitted-through-a-common-viral-infection

Note: The comments (at the least the three posted so far) are worth it on this one.

[mcdornan1]

1. the one problem with a viral theory...

...is explaining the sharp increase in obesity after 1980.