Can you catch obesity?

by Jacki Donaldson (Subscribe to Jacki Donaldson's posts)
Jan 24th 2008 7:00AM

Categories: Diet & Weight Loss, Reviews & Products, Nutrition & Supplements

Is it possible to catch obesity like you'd catch a cold, the flu, or pink eye? Yes, say researchers who believe obesity is due, in part, to a viral infection.

Adenovirus Ad36 -- one in a family of about 50 viruses that cause colds, respiratory infections, gastrointestinal problems, and eye inflammations -- could be the culprit in some cases of obesity in humans and other animals. In fact, it's been linked to a 50 to 100 percent gain in body fat in some animals. And 30 percent of people screened for the virus in one study had the antibodies, compared to 10 percent of people of a healthy weight range.

"We can't say that the virus caused obesity in all those people," says researcher Richard Atkinson, emeritus professor of medicine and nutrition at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. "It's still speculation, some say a gross speculation." Still, Ad36 research has led Atkinson to create an obesity research center in Richmond, Virginia where people can pay for tests to determine whether it's food or viral exposure responsible for their extra pounds.

There are too many restrictions on testing right now for Atkinson and fellow scientists to make any convincing human conclusions. But they are pretty convinced by their study on mice and monkeys. What they've learned so far: Animals inoculated with the virus gain weight even when their food intake remains the same. And Ad36 is transmissible from animal to animal.

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Comments (87)

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 5)

Jenna 1-27-2008 @ 7:18AM

There might be something to the virus influencing how easily someone gains weights, but by and large, the cause of obesity is too much food and not enough exercise. And yes, some people have to work WAY harder than others to remain at a healthy weight--but no one ever said life was fair :)

Jon Boy 1-27-2008 @ 9:45AM

This is the most retarded thing I've ever heard. You can't catch being fat. People are over weight because they eat too much and don't exercise! Wow, the excuses people come up with theses days...

Bored? Check out my blog, http://curiousread.com

Jon Boy

SmarterthanTomthinksIam 1-27-2008 @ 12:08PM

Jon Boy your blog is lame! I just checked it. You are a few days late on your postings. That scientology stuff was a week ago.
Obesity is a sad thing. I beleive it is genetic. I come from a fairly thin family so we are fairly thin. But I do see fat families all the time. You know its based on eating habits and genetics.

Susan Stephens 1-27-2008 @ 7:21AM

It is not a virus! It is a systemic fungal infection! I proved this when I eliminated sugar and grains (which metabolize into sugar) from my diet.
There is a naturally-occuring yeast in your gastro-intestinal tract called Candida Albacans. When you take antibiotics, or consume a mycotoxin (fungal poison) in food, it destroys the natuaral bacteria (friendly flora) in your GI tract, which allows the candida to proliferate...This causes "leaky gut syndrome," when the overgrowth of yeast bores holes in your colon and attacks your body in the form of diabetes, cancer, atrhritis, etc.
After two days of no sugar or grains, I became very nauseous, as the yeast came up into my stomach "looking" for it's food, when the nausea dissipated, several days later, I broke out in a rash, at sweat points. This is the yeast coming out through your skin, in a last desperate search for sugar.
When the rash was gone, so were my cravings! It was the yeast, not me, that craved grains and sugars! I finally had control! Natural antifungals also cured my prediabetes, arthritis and severe,, chronic allergies! I

Jennifer 1-27-2008 @ 10:58AM

can you give me more info please, do you take a suplement or just stop eating A LOT of foods?
please tell me more!! Thank you

Lori 1-27-2008 @ 2:33PM

Susan, I would love to talk further with you! I am very interested in your theory and you sound like you know exactly what you are talking about. My sister lost almost 100 lbs a couple of years ago cutting out sugar and grains. She keeps pushing me to do the same, but I can't seem to rid the sugar habit and I know it is my problem. How can I eliminate it? Can I replace it with Splenda or Equal or is that bad too? I like my morning coffee and I like it sweet and creamy - another bad habit, I'd like to get more info from you if possible, could you email me? I'm desperate!

jennifer 1-27-2008 @ 8:59PM

Go buy Suzanne Somers book Eat Cheat and melt the fat away. I lost 75 lbs in less then 4 months. You will be amazed with the results. No mixing cardbs with protiens and change your sugar to splenda and a few more changes and you will be a new person in no time. Trust me. I am still fat but was 1/2 my size for 2 years. Now I am going for the gastric sleeve operation shortly. But this diet will help you as it has helped me a lot! I had way to much weight to lose. 75 pounds was a nice dent but I still had 100 to go. I can't keep weight loss off for more then two years so I have chosen another route. But this maybe all you need to lose and may better serve you as it did me.

Susan Stephens 1-27-2008 @ 7:20AM

Ed 1-28-2008 @ 3:09PM

Dear Susan, my wife and I are on a glutin free diet and I have developed a horrible rash on my buttocks is this the same thing you are talking about

Kathleen Johnson 1-27-2008 @ 7:25AM

They don't want further testing, because there goes all the revenue from diet pills.
This country is all about the money.
There was once a time, that it was about Truth & the well being of our fellow man.
Look at how many drugs are on the market, that we now know, do not do what they claim, or drugs that cause harm. Those drug companies are still in business, & still producing all kinds of pills for the public without proper testing, & the government covers for them.
They suddenly have to do more testing to find out why it Killed People, or why didn't work as claimed, & results won't come out until 2 or 3 years from now.
Her's my question: WHY didn't they test them before they gave them to the public?
ANSWER: Because we've become their guinea pigs! Yet anything that might help to benefit us, like this testing to see if it's a virus... Is stalled off!
They haven't made their money off the public from all the thousands of diet pills & sugeries yet!

Al 1-27-2008 @ 9:14AM

This is in reply to Susan as well. Kevin Trudeau has a book out, I'm sure you've seen the infomercials, that talks about exactly what the two of you mentioned. It's well worth reading and it makes a lot of sense. Doing a candida cleanse, and says that with regular colon cleansing this is the most important thing you can do to keep healthy AND lose weight. He's right!

Susan Stephens 1-27-2008 @ 7:28AM

For more information, see knowthecause.com! That is the guy who cured me of all of these things! He has books called "What Makes Bread Rise?" (re. obesity. Moisture plus heat plus yeast plus sugar mkes bread rise AND makes bodies rise!) His other books "Infectuous Diabetes," and "The Germ that Causes Cancer" contain much medical documentation. There is also a book by an oncologist called 'Cancer is a Fungus," that you can find by doing an internet search, and an article "Is Cancer Contagious," - and many similar ones - at mercola.com.

Rosemary 1-27-2008 @ 8:05AM

Thank you Susan. I have heard of this theory (fungal) before. I am anxious to check out the web site.

BellaBellaB3 1-27-2008 @ 7:59AM

It's what you eat, and everything in moderation. As far as drugs and pills that someone mentioned, I'm very, very old-fashioned in my self-maintenance methods. I stay far away from the modern pills, and I only take aspirin when I have an extremely severe headache, which is very, very rare. The only "pill" I take is a multiple vitamin, and only in weather changes. I don't take any of the modern cold medicines whatsoever. Vicks and steam, hot tea when I have a cold. The old-fashioned way worked for me when I was a tiny tot, and it still works for me today. I hope I never get into the pill-popping mode that modern society seems to have gotten into. Just eat healthy, and everything in moderation, wrap up in warm enough clothing in inclement weather, etc. It's all just plain common sense.

bub 1-27-2008 @ 8:06AM

I guess until we are sure we must quarantine the obese among us just to be safe. I sure don't want to catch that overeating bug!

tamara 1-27-2008 @ 8:17AM

Yeah, I caugh the obesity virus when I was in college. Some of the symptoms are wanting to eat 3 scoops of buttercrunch ice cream with hot butterscotch topping followed by a pizza at 3 am. This was all NEEDED to study. Other symptoms are excesive beer consumption with no exercise.

As an adult I have made a lifelong committment to being in shape. I am now a personal trainer for women and will never be heavy again.

I have made major changes to my lifestyle. I drink lots of water, try to get decent sleep and try not to drink more thna 2 glasses of wine at a time.

I make sure I get some form of exercise every day. I wear smartsole exercise insoles (http://www.smartsole.com) to burn extra calories with every step. They are under $30 and fantstic.

I use a nordic track toning wheel which is great to travel with too as it is light and works out your arms http://www.nordictrack.com It is about $12

Mamalov 1-27-2008 @ 1:28PM

About fourteen years ago, I decided I'd never go on a diet again. Then I threw away all my diet books and started eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted it.

I was experimenting with the concept that the body actually knows what it needs and will tell us, if we can only learn to listen to it. I believe babies are born with this knowledge — Dr. Spock said so in one, if not all, of his books — and I've read of experiments which point to it, but of course it would be very hard to find babies to experiment with for very long!

After a lifetime spent trying to lose weight, losing it, and gaining back more, it was really, really difficult to let myself eat whatever I wanted, silly as that may sound. It was truly frightening to look at the scale during that time, so I threw that away, too.

Anyway, over the next three years, I put on an additional 50 pounds, and I was already about seventy-five pounds overweight when I tossed the diets.

But in the fourth year, I slowly started losing weight. I learned to tell the difference between wanting food and needing food. I learned to understand which cravings were important to satisfy and which were based on something emotional. I never ignored a craving for anything, but when a craving felt like it might have an emotional source, I learned to say to myself something like, "Of COURSE you can have a piece of chocolate. You can have the whole box if you want it. But don't you think you'd like it even better if you ate it later, say, right before you go to bed?" And when that time came around, I'd often have forgotten all about it. If I still had the craving, I'd eat whatever "bad" food I'd craved. But by not depriving myself of ANYTHING I really wanted, I learned that one piece was usually enough — the first or second taste of a food are usually the ones that taste the best — after that, one often can feel like no more is needed or wanted, if one really pays attention.

That was important — paying attention to what I ate. By doing that, I learned to really love a lot of foods I'd sort of skipped previously, mostly foods in the vegetable or fruit categories!

I ended up losing a bit more than one hundred pounds. I've kept it off for ten years. I still don't have a scale in the house, so I never even think about how much I weigh unless I'm on the scale in my doctor's office. My weight fluctuates a bit — it goes up or down about ten pounds, but when my clothing starts to feel a little bit tight, I make a point of once again really paying attention to, and enjoying, each bite of food I eat, and soon the clothing is comfortable again. But I NEVER tell myself that ANY particular food is wrong to eat or bad. I just eat what I want.

Mostly, these days, what I want is a pretty healthy diet. I never in my life thought I'd be able to say that, but it's really true.

It took a lot of tenacity and courage to let myself eat the foods I'd been taught were evil, and to realize that I was making myself fatter for three years, and I honestly had nothing to prove to me that this experiment was going to work. I could have just gone on gaining weight forever (although, if that had happened, I doubt I'd have been able to allow myself to put on, say, 100 more pounds!) But this experiment really worked out for me. I can't tell you why it worked, or that it would work for anyone but myself, either. I'm writing about it here more to share some personal information than to suggest to anyone that they should do what I did. If anyone reading this feels like giving it a try, they should absolutely discuss it with their doctor first.

Mamalov

Charlie Wolff 1-27-2008 @ 8:37AM

I wonder what are the stats? Do doctors now only give you certain drugs that are equally profitable to their portfolio and stocks?Why do you have to basically beg to get the treatments you feel you need? Today when you go to the doctor's office do you feel that you were examined or processed there? Does HMO stand for Hand Money Over and we'll worry about it on your next visit? I've become more afraid of doctors split second OPINIONS than just triing to see if it will go away. The 2 or 3 hours you spend in their offices waiting to be CURED!!! Why don't they let you read common causes and symptoms of your current problems' instead of Road and Track and Good Housekeeping? Do all cures come in the same three prescriptions? Oh well. I guess we shouldn't expect much for our ten dollar copay. My last question is what does appointment really mean?I don't think the definition is wait and wait and wait read a magazine and WAIT!!!!!!!!!!

Amy 2-17-2008 @ 11:09AM

I Completely agree with you Charlie and with all the teens popping pills and abusing meds ...every time I go to the doc for my meds I get treated like Im just there for drugs or something but yet these same doctors will hand out pills by the dozen to these teens who are misusing them ...I dont get it ?? What are they getting from these kids that make it ok for them but not for a grown adult with some REAL health issues ???? and this isnt just ONE Doctor ...this is the general attitude from SEVERAL Doctors Ive seen over the years ..while searching for that one the really became a Doctor to help OTHERS ...not just line his own pockets...when I found that doctor ..the Insurance company refused to pay for him because my husbands insurance changed and I had to change Doctors...for 1000.00 a month (which is what we pay for health insurance) I should be able to go to ANY Doctor in America if I so choose...the government could learn alot from places like Canada who provide their people with health care no matter what ...and here we are in the "Land of the Free" PFFFFFFT....and cant even pay GOOD money and get to see a decent doctor ..bottom line ..our government doesnt want any one too healthy because it IS ALL a money making racket....they put stuff on the shelves that can kill you but you have to go through red tape a MILE long ...hell and high water ..just to get a script that is ACTUALLY helpful...Im SO disgusted with the world and the government today I rarely leave my home....whats the use ?? I never feel good enough to do anything anyway?? I could go on and on but it would be a waste of my time and effort nothing seems to be getting better its all just getting worse ..and we wonder why we are at war?? we are at war right here as much as any where else...people are dying while the government stands by and lets it happen...its JUST SICKENING !!!!