Obesity Gone Viral

When it comes to overweight and obesity , we've certainly heard all of the causes and culprits under the sun. It used to be that the cause was simply overeating and the blame was placed upon an obese person's lack of control over his or her eating. Then, the blame was placed upon the omnipresence of the almighty idiot box–the television–and even the snack and fast food industries, which brainwash children and adults to eat their obscenely high-calorie and fat-filled foods. And don't forget genes–which seems to be the source of every disease these days. Genetically predisposed is a catchphrase for many of late. Well, guess what the hot topic cause of obesity is since January! An obesity-causing virus.

Yes, I could not have made it up: Dr Nikhil Dhurandhar from Louisiana believes that a common cold virus can interfere with normal bodily processes and make us fat. The doctor and his team at Pennington Biomedical Research Centre have documented over 1,000 patients whose obesity appears to be linked to infection with the virus called Adenovirus-36. Apparently, when the virus goes to fat tissue it replicates and in the process, increases the number of fat cells, possibly explaining why people become fat when infected with the virus.
If it is indeed a piece of the huge obesity puzzle, it does make things a bit more complicated for us–would this mean that, since viruses are contagious, we would need to stay away from the obese so not to "catch obesity"? On the other hand, such news may further justify the use of medication to assist in weight loss for the morbidly (or even not morbidly), obese. I can't help but wonder through, if such a study would give people a sense of greater freedom with their own diets and overall consumption, with some or much of the onus taken off people's backs to take responsibility for their own weight and physical condition…I guess we'll have to wait for further research to emerge and confirm Dr. D's findings…