Posted on 01/30/2006 6:17:15 PM PST by blam
Obesity 'can be caught like a cold'
By Roger Highfield, Science Editor
(Filed: 31/01/2006)
Evidence that obesity could be contagious was published yesterday by American researchers - and washing your hands could be an elementary step to avoiding the virus and becoming overweight.
A team led by Dr Leah Whigham, of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, found that the human adenovirus Ad-37 causes obesity in chickens, marking the third virus to be linked to being overweight: two related viruses, Ad-36 and Ad-5, also cause obesity in animals.
Moreover, Ad-36 has been associated with human obesity, leading researchers to suspect that Ad-37 also may be implicated.
"We know Ad-36, and now Ad-37, cause obesity in animals," said Dr Whigham, whose findings are reported in the American Journal of Physiology.
"But we do not have cause-and-effect data in humans - you cannot ethically do the experiments for that kind of data: infect humans and see if they get fat."
The notion that viruses can cause obesity has been a contentious one among scientists, she admitted. And yet, there is evidence that factors other than poor diet or lack of exercise may be at work.
"With the exception of infectious diseases, no other chronic disease in history has spread so rapidly," Dr Whigham said.
"The nearly simultaneous increase in obesity in most countries is difficult to explain by changes in food intake and exercise alone, and suggest that adenoviruses could have contributed."
Absolutely.
LMAO! Ya think...
Sounds like something out of The Onion, doesn't it. LMAO
This thread is too funny!
That's because FAT IS FUNNY!!! (unless it's stealthfully gotten stuck to yer A$$)
This wouldn't surprise me, not the first time an infectious agent has been found to cause something previously thought caused by something else (helicobacter Pylori comes to mind)..
I could go for a nice big root beer float about now.
Oh man, I have the ingredients, question is can I drag my sorry arse down to the kitchen and make one... and then make it back upstairs after ward. brrrr,, I shibbering at the thought..
Since Al Gore invented the internet, maybe we should sue!
Oh, YUMMMMM!
I rather enjoy having someone sneeze a doazen Twinkies down my throat.
I dunno, I hear a lot of fat people complaining all the time about how tough it is to lose weight (my late mother among them). But when I ask them how much exercise they're getting, I have yet to hear a fat person say, "Oh, I ran three miles with my dog this morning, I'll take a walk on my lunch hour, and I'm going to swim half a mile after work." Spending a few minutes on an exercise bike or lifting a few weights won't do it.
Its a vanilla-ish caramel swirls with chocolate chewy nuggets ice cream.. I have barq's instead of a&w tho.. oh well.
Well? Didn'tcha see how big and bloated he got after the Freepers drove him out of Cheney's house??? He gourged himself on comfort food while lurkin on all those Sore/Loserman threads durin his 2000 attempt to "steal home!" Remember???
We don't need ta sue the basipe, cause now they'd hafta empty the entire reservoir to float his canoe's displacement over all those rocks while discovering the danged ENVIRONMENT!!! Haaaaaaaaaaa Ha Ha Ha!!!
yikes!
Looks like they're just about to go into labor!
That's easy for you to say. You're probably the only guy on this board that has a real job.
Do we have time to qualify a initiative for the fall ballot to ban Second Hand Fat...
I love the smell of second hand smoke.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.