I’M NOT TO BLAME

Cold virus behind obesity?

A common virus that causes colds can be a factor in obesity, according to a study offering further evidence that a weight problem may be contagious.

The adenovirus-36 (AD-36) has already been implicated as the cause of weight gain in animals but with this study, released on Monday, researchers showed for the first time that it can also cause humans to pile on the pounds.

The findings could accelerate the development of a vaccine or an anti viral medication to help fight the battle of the bulge alongside diet and exercise. “We’re not saying that a virus is the only cause of obesity, but this study provides stronger evidence that some obesity cases may involve viral infections,” said Magdalena Pasarica, an obesity researcher at the Pennington Biomedical Research Center at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. In laboratory experiments, the Louisana State University researchers found that the bug appeared to promote the formation of fat cells from stem cells. The team took adult stem cells from fatty tissue left over from patients who had undergone liposuction, a procedure to remove fat, and exposed some of it to AD-36, leaving the rest untreated.

After a week of growth in tissue culture, most of the virus-infected adult stem cells developed into fat cells, whereas the untreated cells did not. A study in animals found that they remained obese up to six months after the infection had cleared.

‘Menopause makes older women fat’

As if the hot flashes and insomnia of menopause weren’t bad enough, now comes that menopause can make you fat. The declining estrogen levels associated with “the change” can interfere with metabolic processes leading to weight gain, US researchers said. The findings seem to support a link between the female sex hormone estrogen and regulation of obesity, especially the dangerous accumulation of abdominal fat linked to heart disease, diabetes and cancer . “The accumulation of abdominal fat puts both men and women at heightened risk of cardiovascular disease, diabetes and insulin resistance,”