Can you catch obesity?

Maybe its not your fault you’re fat.  Just as we learned in 2005 that some stomach ulcers are caused by bacteria, after years of consensus that they were caused by stress, new research indicates that a group of viruses may cause excess weight gain.

“Ad-37 is the third human adenovirus to increase adiposity in animals, but not all adenoviruses produce obesity,” Whigham and her fellow authors write in their report presenting the findings in the current issue of the American Journal of Physiology.  Although it remains unclear exactly how Ad-37 adds fat, it joins a growing list of such viruses, including canine distemper, Ad-5 and Ad-36.

Read the full story at Scientific American.


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