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Infectobesity: catching obesity from a cold virus?
Macy9336
Posts: 694 Member
in Debate Club
What are your thoughts on Infectobesity? May be old news for many on here but it is intriguing. Conventional science holds that obesity is only caused by an energy imbalance...thus the calories in, calories out mantra. However, a cohort of scientists are now viewing obesity similar to cancer...a disease with one name but multiple causes one of which may be viral in nature. It seems outlandish to think that you can "catch" obesity but there have been several animal trials and studies showing that some people may be obese due to a viral infection. I remember growing up the science of the day scoffed at the whole idea that ulcers could be caused by an infectious agent...it was stress and eating acid generating foods. The common image was a middle aged, harried middle manager working long hours in a stressful office and eating quick grab fatty foods like sloppy joes or spicy Chinese takeaway for lunch and then popping antacids. Fast forward and we now know ulcers are caused by a bacterial infection of h. Pylori. Similarly, "the cancer" was purely down to pollution. Fast forward and we know it's genetics, its viruses (HPV), its food, its obesity, its age and yes it's pollution too.
http://www.prevention.com/weight-loss/virus-may-cause-obesity
This article summarises some basic knowledge to date. Some key points are as follows:
Labs have identified a dozen microbes that can cause obesity.
In animal studies, animals purposely infected will gain 2.5 times more weight than uninfected animals even though they are fed the exact same amount of food (same activity level because they're in same size cage)
The weight gain to obesity happens in 60-100% of infected animals or a very high probability that an infected animal will become obese.
Cannot purposely infect humans to test this but, did tests on 15,000 people world wide to see if obese and normal people had antibodies for these microbes.
One microbe, AD-36, was 300 times more likely to be found in an obese person.
About one third of obese people test positive for infection (33%)
Further reading
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/virus-in-chicken-could-be-linked-to-obesity.html
http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-0313/ijsrp-p1563.pdf
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2012/10/03/infectobesity-is-obesity-transmitted-through-a-common-viral-infection/
http://www.prevention.com/weight-loss/virus-may-cause-obesity
This article summarises some basic knowledge to date. Some key points are as follows:
Labs have identified a dozen microbes that can cause obesity.
In animal studies, animals purposely infected will gain 2.5 times more weight than uninfected animals even though they are fed the exact same amount of food (same activity level because they're in same size cage)
The weight gain to obesity happens in 60-100% of infected animals or a very high probability that an infected animal will become obese.
Cannot purposely infect humans to test this but, did tests on 15,000 people world wide to see if obese and normal people had antibodies for these microbes.
One microbe, AD-36, was 300 times more likely to be found in an obese person.
About one third of obese people test positive for infection (33%)
Further reading
http://www.care2.com/greenliving/virus-in-chicken-could-be-linked-to-obesity.html
http://www.ijsrp.org/research-paper-0313/ijsrp-p1563.pdf
http://blogs.plos.org/obesitypanacea/2012/10/03/infectobesity-is-obesity-transmitted-through-a-common-viral-infection/
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Replies
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Just what we need, another excuse.21
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I think there's something to gut bacteria, but I don't think people are "catching" obesity. I've been in the just over the line to obese area and I know how I got there and I know how I got down to about 15% BF. I see obese and morbidly obese people shopping and it's pretty well evident as to why they are in that condition. I see them in restaurants, and it's all pretty self evident IMO.9
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It's not my fault, cool!9
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CICO/energy balance necessarily still applies no matter what affects it. 100 calories a day of a difference can be the difference between obesity and healthy weight over a long time. (above maintenance, ~1lb gain every 35 days). Unless the virus keeps you bedridden most of the time your maintenance level is not going to plummet out of normal range and humans have all the tools to manage their calories.
IF you have the virus, you'll still lose weight if you find your maintenance level and eat below it.4 -
cwolfman13 wrote: »I think there's something to gut bacteria, but I don't think people are "catching" obesity. I've been in the just over the line to obese area and I know how I got there and I know how I got down to about 15% BF. I see obese and morbidly obese people shopping and it's pretty well evident as to why they are in that condition. I see them in restaurants, and it's all pretty self evident IMO.
Also: If this is true for humans, then sure it would increase the overall obesity average of the population, leaving it down to the individual who still has free reign to make the (probably small - they add up) adjustments and counteract it.
But overall, obese people have faster metabolisms than normal weight people.1 -
Here's a really outlandish thought. In a sci-if series of books about a world called Helliconia, the planet had a year of a few thousand years. The winters were like our Ice Ages, and the summers like our current day Equator. What happened in the books as the world approached winter, the "Fat Sickness" would appear and it would make survivors gain weight and thus appear grotesquely fat (to the slim sumner people) and as the world approached spring, the "starving sickness" would strike resulting in the survivors losing weight and appearing to be walking skeletons ( to the heavier winter people). The author wrote it as a natural adaptation to prepare the human populations for the upcoming winter by adding body mass and insulating fat and then shedding the weight and fat to adapt the humans for the summer. Since the year was thousands of years, there'd be generations where the humans would all be fat whilst it was cold and then generations of being thin whilst the world was hot. Now our world, Earth, is due anytime for its next Ice Age...it's been 26,000 years..and mysteriously an obesity virus has appeared out of nowhere...we have an obesity epidemic going on. I've often wondered how in the heck did humans survive the last Ice Ages? Why are the Ice Age era 30,000 yr old carvings of women all hugely obese "Venus" figurines?.....8
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Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »It's not my fault, cool!
I haven't had a cold since I lost weight. Hmmm
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I agree CICO would still apply, but if someone's been infected with this virus it appears their maintenance level would be much lower than an uninflected person. If the animals fed the same food gained weight 2.5 times or 250% faster....then an infected person's food efficiency must be much greater...so their BMR must be way lower than normal for their height and weight. So I guess they'd have to figure out different caloric intakes for infected vs uninflected.1
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Tiny_Dancer_in_Pink wrote: »It's not my fault, cool!
I haven't had a cold since I lost weight. Hmmm
Ive had one. in the last 13 years,also had h pylori at one time too.still lost weight0 -
I agree CICO would still apply, but if someone's been infected with this virus it appears their maintenance level would be much lower than an uninflected person. If the animals fed the same food gained weight 2.5 times or 250% faster....then an infected person's food efficiency must be much greater...so their BMR must be way lower than normal for their height and weight. So I guess they'd have to figure out different caloric intakes for infected vs uninflected.
so basically you are saying that these viruses cause metabolic issues? oh and prevention is not a reliable source when it comes to a lot of things. h-pylori is a bacteria that can cause ulcers,but its not always the case. and HPV causing metabolic issues? so I guess in that case obesity is a STI? LOL2 -
This article summarises some basic knowledge to date.
Basic knowledge available to us now:
People who eat more than they burn reliably gain weight
People who eat less than they burn reliably lose weight
So, for this idea "infectobesity" to be correct, either this virus that causes weight loss is not permanent and can be cured by simple determination.5 -
RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Just what we need, another excuse.
I don't think that's a useful way to look at the world at all. Something is either true or it isn't. Not liking the way you'd interpret something doesn't make it not true.2 -
Here's a really outlandish thought. In a sci-if series of books about a world called Helliconia, the planet had a year of a few thousand years. The winters were like our Ice Ages, and the summers like our current day Equator. What happened in the books as the world approached winter, the "Fat Sickness" would appear and it would make survivors gain weight and thus appear grotesquely fat (to the slim sumner people) and as the world approached spring, the "starving sickness" would strike resulting in the survivors losing weight and appearing to be walking skeletons ( to the heavier winter people). The author wrote it as a natural adaptation to prepare the human populations for the upcoming winter by adding body mass and insulating fat and then shedding the weight and fat to adapt the humans for the summer. Since the year was thousands of years, there'd be generations where the humans would all be fat whilst it was cold and then generations of being thin whilst the world was hot. Now our world, Earth, is due anytime for its next Ice Age...it's been 26,000 years..and mysteriously an obesity virus has appeared out of nowhere...we have an obesity epidemic going on. I've often wondered how in the heck did humans survive the last Ice Ages? Why are the Ice Age era 30,000 yr old carvings of women all hugely obese "Venus" figurines?.....
Yup that certainly is a really outlandish thought.
I love that people think the entire Earth was covered in ice sheets during the last ice age. It wasn't. And very few populations lived in areas that were ice-covered. Ice Age Europe was pretty much just the Neanderthals, who were cold-adapted.
It's a no-brainer that Palaeolithic populations laid down additional fat stores during times of plenty but it's highly unlikely it was anywhere near enough to get into the obese category.
And to suggest that obesity is increasing because the human population somehow instinctively knows the planet should be heading towards ice age conditions? Just, no.8 -
You can lay down some tinder, but unless you add kindling, wood, and strike a match, you're not going to have a fire.
I have a feeling from what I quickly read, that this virus is nothing more than any other medical issue that might make it easier for someone to hold onto weight once they start taking in excess calories.
The fat isn't going to be created by the virus, though.5 -
If I saw a lot of people who were regularly active and ate good diets and remained frustratingly overweight, perhaps I would find "reason #782 for why it's not my fault" interesting.
But the vast majority of people who "can't lose weight" invariably discover they were eating more than they thought once they started logging, or weren't anywhere near as active as they thought once they got an activity tracker or stopped believing what the treadmill told them. The few people I've run across who were doing everything right and couldn't lose weight were trying to lose vanity lbs to get extra lean and didn't have any wiggle room.
Are there really so many people out there who are doing everything right but are obese? Where are they? This study "found" this virus more often in obese people, but did they study the diets and exercise habits of those people? Isn't it possible (since obesity taxes the body) that obese people are simply more likely to catch this virus than healthy-weight people? Why wouldn't your immune system kick it out like any other virus? Does it make you temporarily obese? Is the virus causing your body to make fat out of nothing? Does the rest of your body starve while all your energy goes into creating fat? Or does it cause you to eat more?11 -
Conventional science holds that obesity is only caused by an energy imbalance...thus the calories in, calories out mantra.
"Conventional science" is usually referred to by its shortened name: science.
I took a quick look at both of these. Neither journal has a very high impact factor (which would indicate a trustworthy source), and only 1 is an actual metastudy (the other is just a blog post about a different metastudy, found here).
Neither even pretends that there's a causative link between the virus and obesity -- just that there's a correlation. It could easily be that this virus just makes people hungrier than normal, or there could be no link at all, and this could all just be happenstance.
Whatever the case, I'm gonna need to see more info before jumping on board.
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Here's a really outlandish thought. In a sci-if series of books about a world called Helliconia, the planet had a year of a few thousand years. The winters were like our Ice Ages, and the summers like our current day Equator. What happened in the books as the world approached winter, the "Fat Sickness" would appear and it would make survivors gain weight and thus appear grotesquely fat (to the slim sumner people) and as the world approached spring, the "starving sickness" would strike resulting in the survivors losing weight and appearing to be walking skeletons ( to the heavier winter people). The author wrote it as a natural adaptation to prepare the human populations for the upcoming winter by adding body mass and insulating fat and then shedding the weight and fat to adapt the humans for the summer. Since the year was thousands of years, there'd be generations where the humans would all be fat whilst it was cold and then generations of being thin whilst the world was hot. Now our world, Earth, is due anytime for its next Ice Age...it's been 26,000 years..and mysteriously an obesity virus has appeared out of nowhere...we have an obesity epidemic going on. I've often wondered how in the heck did humans survive the last Ice Ages? Why are the Ice Age era 30,000 yr old carvings of women all hugely obese "Venus" figurines?.....
This would only make any sense if there was no such thing as evolution by natural selection. Survival of the fittest means those who are best suited to the environment they live in - not the environment their great great great grand children will live in - are those who leave the most offspring.1 -
NorthCascades wrote: »RuNaRoUnDaFiEld wrote: »Just what we need, another excuse.
I don't think that's a useful way to look at the world at all. Something is either true or it isn't. Not liking the way you'd interpret something doesn't make it not true.
No, evidence makes something true. The evidence for this is so weak that even the authors of the articles themselves don't claim it's true, just that there is some correlation in the data and more study is warranted.3 -
Here's a really outlandish thought. In a sci-if series of books about a world called Helliconia, the planet had a year of a few thousand years. The winters were like our Ice Ages, and the summers like our current day Equator. What happened in the books as the world approached winter, the "Fat Sickness" would appear and it would make survivors gain weight and thus appear grotesquely fat (to the slim sumner people) and as the world approached spring, the "starving sickness" would strike resulting in the survivors losing weight and appearing to be walking skeletons ( to the heavier winter people). The author wrote it as a natural adaptation to prepare the human populations for the upcoming winter by adding body mass and insulating fat and then shedding the weight and fat to adapt the humans for the summer. Since the year was thousands of years, there'd be generations where the humans would all be fat whilst it was cold and then generations of being thin whilst the world was hot. Now our world, Earth, is due anytime for its next Ice Age...it's been 26,000 years..and mysteriously an obesity virus has appeared out of nowhere...we have an obesity epidemic going on. I've often wondered how in the heck did humans survive the last Ice Ages? Why are the Ice Age era 30,000 yr old carvings of women all hugely obese "Venus" figurines?.....
"Ideal imagery?" Why do our models tend to be rail thin when that doesn't really reflect reality?7 -
Correlation at its worst. There are no results showing any statistically significant change in weight based upon intestinal flora, viral or prokaryotic load in humans.
There are numerous studies and results that show a statistically significant change in intestinal flora, viral/prokaryotic load in patients who have undergone a significant change in weight.
This is not cause...it's the effect.7
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