Date published: 2007/08/21
The BBC says:
Scientists believe a virus may play a role in obesity, raising the possibility that medication could be used to tackle the condition.
A team at Louisiana's Pennington Center found that a common virus could cause stem cells to change into fat cells in lab experiments.
Researchers told the American Chemical Society conference anti-viral treatments might be possible.
But UK experts said the idea of obesity as an infectious illness was unlikely.
...
Dr Magdalena Pasarica, who led the research, said: "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."Not all infected people will develop obesity - we would ultimately like to identify the underlying factors that predispose some obese people to develop this virus and eventually find a way to treat it."
Not everyone is convinced, however. Dr Colin Waine, of the National Obesity Forum in the UK, said that while it was attractive to chase a "holy grail", more practical measures were the best way to tackle the western world's obesity epidemic.
"Basically, when energy consumed exceeds expenditure, that's when weight increases."
Dr Nick Finer, from the Centre for Obesity Research, said that while the virus was "interesting", the idea of an infectious cause of obesity was hard to accept ahead of far more convincing explanations.
"I just can't see how this explains the epidemic of obesity we are experiencing," he said.
Scientists, of all people, ought to be able to accept that there can be multiple factors influencing a natural phenomenon. So a virus could have some impact (even if that seems odd), although it is obviously commonly believed that energy excess explains more. Nobody is claiming that the virus "explains the [ alleged ] epidemic of obesity we are experiencing".
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