Virus causes Obesity

A study published in the highly respected New England Journal of Eternal Medicine due out today claims that obesity is caused by a virus.

The finding, if valid, directly contradicts the widely accepted theory that links obesity with lifestyle factors such as diet and lack of exercise.

Researchers said they were studying the relationship between a defective gene and binge eating when they stumbled upon the virus.

It is my humble opinion that the government is causing obesity...they encourage us to eat grains and other carbohydrates (insulin producing products) Insulin is what converts simple sugar to fat on your body...

This is simply not true. Carbohydrates do not produce insulin. Insulin does not convert "simple" sugar (or any other sugar) to fat. Unlike hogs, humans make very little de novo fat. If you were to take samples of all the fats in the foods you ate over the course of several months and then compare their ratios to the fats stored in your adipose tissue, you'd find almost an exact match. Virtually ALL the fat that you've stored in adipose tissue is dietary fat.

Human adenovirus Ad-36 promotes weight gain in male rhesus and marmoset monkeys.

Dhurandhar NV, Whigham LD, Abbott DH, Schultz-Darken NJ, Israel BA, Bradley SM, Kemnitz JW, Allison DB, Atkinson RL.

Department of Nutrition and Food Science and the Center for Molecular Medicine and Genetics, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA. ndhurand@sun.science.wayne.edu

Although obesity has multiple etiologies, an overlooked possibility is an infectious origin. We previously identified two viruses, SMAM-1, an avian adenovirus (Ad), and Ad-36, a human adenovirus, that produce a syndrome of visceral obesity, with paradoxically decreased serum cholesterol and triglycerides in chickens and mice. In the two studies presented in this paper, we used nonhuman primates to investigate the adiposity-promoting potential of Ad-36. In study 1, we observed spontaneously occurring Ad-36 antibodies in 15 male rhesus monkeys, and a significant longitudinal association of positive antibody status with weight gain and plasma cholesterol lowering during the 18 mo after viral antibody appearance. In study 2, which was a randomized controlled experiment, three male marmosets inoculated with Ad-36 had a threefold body weight gain, a greater fat gain and lower serum cholesterol relative to baseline (P <0.05) than three uninfected controls at 28 wk postinoculation. These studies illustrate that the adiposity-promoting effect of Ad-36 occurs in two nonhuman primate species and demonstrates the usefulness of nonhuman primates for further evaluation of Ad-36-induced adiposity.

PMID: 12368411 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Amen! I am astonished at the implications of the effects of carbs on our system. i've been lo-carb for about three years now (fall of the wagon a couple of times a year) and hunger is a thing of the past. haven't lost MASSIVE amount of weight since because i have a serious hip problem (pre-Atkins) i am must more inactive than i was. none-the-less i am *much* lighter than i was twenty years ago!

i see obesity in the US and the world as a man-made catastrophe, all created through either a sinister plot, or incalculable incompetence and scientific arrogance or through cold blooded greed, or perhaps a combination of all three...

to me it has been a real eye-opener on public knowledge and public manipulation by the powers that be...

"If you were to take samples of all the fats in the foods you ate over the course of several months and then compare their ratios to the fats stored in your adipose tissue, you'd find almost an exact match. Virtually ALL the fat that you've stored in adipose tissue is dietary fat"

This is true, and makes sense...your body releases insulin when simple sugars are introduced into your system, those simple sugars are then either converted to fat or burned immediately to provide quick energy. Yes, if you looked at the fat on a human body and matched it to animal fat in our diet it would stand to reason they would look the same...they are produced the same way. Mainly carbohydrates being converted to fat. Fat and Protein are metabolized by an enzyme produced in the liver and are broken down by a more complex process to create simple sugar which can then be used for energy by the body.

If you think I'm wrong then why is the rate of diabetes climbing at a staggering rate in the last 20 years? Diabetics are generally heavy, have a diet high in simple carbohydrates - flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, alcohol, etc. Not all carbohydrates are equal - there are complex carbohydrates that are more difficult for your body to break down.

Yes, if you looked at the fat on a human body and matched it to animal fat in our diet it would stand to reason they would look the same...they are produced the same way. Mainly carbohydrates being converted to fat. Fat and Protein are metabolized by an enzyme produced in the liver and are broken down by a more complex process to create simple sugar which can then be used for energy by the body.

No, they don't look the same because they are produced in the same way. The mix of lipids ingested in the diet looks the same as the stored lipids in an individual because a) the human body makes almost no new fats from scratch, especially on a hypercaloric diet and b) the lipids stored in your fat tissue came almost entirely from the food you put into your mouth. Fats are not broken down to make glucose. Very little glucose in humans is made into fat. Fats in the human cannot be made into glucose. Most of your daily energy expenditure comes from the direct oxidation of fats. The body has no storage capacity for excess amino acids. Amino acids in excess of those needed for protein synthesis are burned, after deamination, either in the ketogenic or glucogenic pathways for energy. The body has only about a 3 day storage capacity for glucose in the form of glycogen.

When the glycogen stores are replete, as can happen in a hypercaloric diet, the body shifts preferentially toward glucose oxidation just for self-protection. It shifts away from fat oxidation since the ability to store fat is almost unlimited (compared to glucose). Energy intake in excess of energy expenditure is stored in the form of fats, dietary fats. This is why people who take in more energy than they expend through their resting metabolism, thermic effect of meals, and physical activity, get fat. Those who get fat, especially those who get fat and have little physical activity have higher circulating levels of plasma fatty acids. Higher levels of plasma fatty acids impair insulin sensitivity with the end result of people developing insulin-resistant diabetes, also known as adult onset diabetes or type II diabetes.

If you think I'm wrong then why is the rate of diabetes climbing at a staggering rate in the last 20 years? Diabetics are generally heavy, have a diet high in simple carbohydrates - flour, sugar, rice, potatoes, alcohol, etc. Not all carbohydrates are equal - there are complex carbohydrates that are more difficult for your body to break down.

I know you're wrong because I'm a Ph.D. in the field of Human Nutrition/Nutritional Biology and my focus was on energy metabolism.

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