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Virus May Cause Childhood Obesity

 |  By cclark@healthleadersmedia.com  
   September 22, 2010

Antibodies to an adenovirus could provoke obesity in children, perhaps in addition to poor diet and sedentary behavior, a Pediatrics report shows.

Jeffrey Schwimmer, MD, associate professor of clinical pediatrics at the University of California San Diego and colleagues recruited 124 children and adolescents between age 8 and 18, seeking to include at least 50 who were obese and at least 50 who were not.

They discovered that 19 of the 124 children tested positive for adenovirus-36 antibodies. And of those, 78% were obese, weighing at least 50 pounds more, on average, than children who were AD36 negative. "AD-36 was significantly more frequent in obese children (15/67, 22%) than non-obese children (4/57, 7%)," Schwimmer writes.

"Many people believe that obesity is one's own fault or the fault of one's parents or family," Schwimmer says. This work helps point out that body weight is more complicated than it's made out to be. And it is time that we move away from assigning blame in favor of developing a level of understanding that will better support efforts at both prevention and treatment."

"Should a cause-and-effect relationship be established," Schwimmer and colleagues say. "It would have considerable implications for the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity."

Schwimmer says the study was designed to follow up on several other published findings that link AD36 and obesity. One found that presence of antibodies to AD36 was linked to increased levels of body fat in several animal models. Two other reports "supported the association between AD36 and obesity in adults."

Additionally, a study of obese children in Korea found AD36 antibodies in 30% of a study sample.

In cell culture the virus infects pre-adipocyctes or immature fat cells, provoking them to proliferate more than normal.

In the U.S., about one in every three children is overweight or obese, and about 15% are obese.

It remains unclear how often or under what circumstances AD36 infects humans, why it affects different people in different sways and whether weight gain is the result of an active infection or a lasting change in a person's metabolism.  In humans, AD36 can cause a variety of respiratory, gastrointestinal and other infections.

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

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