Obesity virus

There are many causes of obesity, but recently, there is the first evidence that the Ad-36 virus is one of the causes. A group of scientists in the United States is deeply investigating this issue .

Test results show that adenovirus -36 (Ad-36) virus is capable of causing obesity.(Photo: Rkm.com.au)

Through tests on mice and later on humans, the team identified Adenovirus-36 virus (Ad-36) - a virus that causes eye and respiratory infections - potentially causing obesity. Not only does it cause eye and respiratory infections, the Ad-36 virus also has the ability to turn human stem cells into fat cells, thereby causing obesity.

Test results on mice show that Ad-36 has made the mouse increasingly fat. Mr. Dhurandhar said: 'Fat has accumulated a lot in the mouse'.

Later, a large human trial also showed that 30% of obese people had antibodies against Ad-36 - that is, they had been infected with the virus before; while in people with normal body weight, the rate of antibodies is only 11%.

At the same time, experts also found that exposure to Ad-36 caused human stem cells to turn into fat-filled cells.

In this study, Dr. Magdalena Pasarica extracted stem cells from fat tissues of patients who have recently undergone liposuction (liposuction). She gave half of these stem cells exposure to Ad-36. After just one week, most of these cells developed fat cells, while the cells not exposed to Ad-36 remained unchanged.

According to Nikhil Dhurandhar, associate professor at Louisiana State University, the current research leader is unlikely to believe that obesity can be caused by viruses.

Dr. Dhurandhar hopes to develop an Ad-36 anti-viral vaccine for human obesity within 5-10 years.(Photo: CTV.ca)

Mr. Nikhil Dhurandhar acknowledged that overeating is related to overweight or obesity but 'There are many causes of obesity, from overeating to gene defects, to metabolic disorders and virus infection too, ' he said.

In the long term, Mr. Dhurandhar believes that vaccines will be developed and possibly therapies to fight Ad-36. But first, he and his team need to better understand the role of Ad-36 in causing obesity in humans.

From this new finding, the team hopes that the first vaccine to fight obesity could be prepared and tested in 5-10 years.

On August 20, Dr. Pasarica presented the results of this study at a conference of the American Chemical Society, held in Boston. According to the World Health Organization, the world currently has about 400 million obese people, including 20 million children under 5 years old.

Quang Thinh