A vaccine to conquer obesity? This virus holds the key
it sounds almost too good to be true for those struggling to keep their weight down – a simple jab to prevent unwanted pounds piling on.
But the prospect of a vaccine to stop you getting fat is drawing closer after scientists found compelling evidence linking obesity to an infectious virus.
Adenovirus-36 is found four times more often among the obese than in patients of a healthy weight.
Studies on animals indicate that the virus is responsible for adding up to 15% to body weight. That’s a stone and a half for the average woman, or two stone for a man.
The finding comes as levels of obesity have spiralled. More than 60% of Irish people are overweight or obese. And with the risk of 75% of obese children remaining obese into adulthood, Ireland is set to become Europe’s fattest nation.
Adenovirus-36 has a two-fold effect, not only irritating fat cells and causing them to become inflamed, but also preventing them dying and being disposed of by the body. The affected cells then accumulate, leading to obesity.
In a study using samples of healthy tissue from 80 women with breast cancer, four out of five who were overweight had the virus – against just one in five who were a normal weight.
Although the link could be the result of the cancer making the infection more likely, earlier research found that monkeys injected with the virus went on to gain weight. In other studies, at least 30% of obese people were found to be infected but just 11% of those with a healthy weight had the virus. Adenoviruses are usually linked to colds and eye and bowel infections. A close relative of adenovirus-36 has already been proven to cause mice and monkeys to put on weight. Dr Wilmore Webley, of the University of Massachusetts, conducted the study into the breast cancer patients. He says a vaccine for adenoviruses that cause respiratory problems is already used by the US Army and this is evidence a vaccine for the obesity virus could be developed. Dr Richard Atkinson, emeritus professor at the University of Wisconsin, has already patented a vaccine for the virus but has been unable to attract enough funding to make it commercially. He said that academics in South Korea had tested the vaccine on animals and it had prevented the virus from infecting fat cells.
He said the vaccine would be given to young people to protect them from getting the virus and stop fat cells accumulating, although he warned it would not be a substitute for a healthy diet.
Even if a vaccine could stop only a fraction of obesity cases, the potential knock-on effects of reducing deaths from being overweight and from related diseases such as diabetes and a range of cancers are worth funding development of the vaccine, says Dr Webley.
With millions of people around the world dying from obesityrelated diseases each year, a vaccine could save thousands of lives.