Fat Virus

A study to be presented on an upcoming BBC television special suggests that an adenovirus called AD-36 may contribute to obesity in humans. Of course, your skeptical antennae should be waggling furiously at this news, since we all know that real scientific studies usually appear in peer-reviewed journals before they’re trotted out to television. But the results are compelling, because they seem to back up previous research on the same adenovirus. In 1997, scientists at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana discovered that up to 15% of research subjects carried antibodies to AD-36, which indicated that they had been exposed to the virus in the past. In 2006, it was discovered that a similar adenovirus, AD-37, causes obesity in chickens. When it was later revealed that AD-36 could transform adult stem cells into fat cells, it became pretty clear that this virus could possibly expand the waistlines of people. This new research found that 33% of obese adults had contracted AD-36 sometime in their lives, compared to 11% of skinny bastards. It’s thought that when AD-36 replicates itself in fat cells, it leads to the creation of more fat cells. Of course, none of this negates the fact that the primary cause of obesity is simply eating too damn much. So if you’re bursting out of your jeans, it’s probably best to not blame a viral infection and instead wave off that third cheeseburger. More details here.