Leah Whigham of the University of Wisconsin, Madison,
found that a human-infecting virus called AD-37 causes
obesity in chickens. Previous studies had found two or three
related viruses were associated with obesity in animals or
humans, the researchers added.
AD-37 is an adenovirus like those that commonly cause
upper respiratory tract infections including the common cold.
"The prevalence of obesity has doubled in adults in the United
States in the last 30 years and has tripled in children," the study
noted. "With the exception of infectious diseases, no other
chronic disease in history has spread so rapidly"
Ulcers were once thought to be the result of stress, but
researchers eventually implicated bacteria, H. pylori,
as a cause.
The study appears in the January issue of the
American Journal of Physiology—Regulatory, Integrative and
Comparative Physiology.