Be careful or you might catch obesity, suggests new study

Wednesday, September 22, 2010 by: Ethan A. Huff, staff writer
Tags: obesity, contagious, health news

(NaturalNews) A new report published in the journal Pediatrics has many common sense folks scratching their heads in confusion. Childhood obesity has become a major problem with more than 17 percent of American children now overweight, and most people realize that poor diet and lack of exercise are to blame. But a new study has somehow linked a flu-related antibody to being overweight, suggesting that it may be possible to actually "catch" obesity from an obese person.

According to the report, children who have been exposed to "adenovirus 36" (AD36), a common cause of respiratory and eye infections in humans, are apparently more likely to be fat than children who have never been exposed. Researchers came to this conclusion by sampling 124 children, in which 22 percent of those who were overweight had antibodies from AD36 in their bodies as opposed to only seven percent among those who were of a normal weight. From this, they concluded that the antibody must play some role in causing obesity.

Such reasoning, of course, is absolutely ridiculous because every medical professional knows that correlation does not imply causation, especially when it takes an extreme stretch of the imagination to make a connection, particularly one between a virus and obesity. But this fact did not stop the team from suggesting that obesity may be caused by a virus.

The study conclusion actually states that "these data support an association of obesity and higher body weight with the presence of neutralizing antibodies to AD36 in children", and that "[i]f a cause-and-effect relationship is established, it would have considerable implications for the prevention and treatment of childhood obesity."

Common sense studies like those that find a direct causative relationship between vitamin D intake and the prevention of disease are often immediately ridiculed with that all-too-popular and overused phrase "correlation does not imply causation", but when researchers concoct a study that suggests that obesity is a contagious disease, it gets enough credible nods from the medical community to actually be published in a reputable journal.

The study actually suggests the virus is not related to obesity, but who cares about the facts

If you actually take a look at the study for yourself, you will see that the data actually does not imply a connection between AD36 antibodies and obesity. Four of the 19 children in the study who had the antibodies were not even overweight and the majority of overweight children in the study did not have the antibodies at all.

So why did researchers look at the numbers in such a way as to make a connection? Well, the primary objective of the study was to "assess the relationship between adenovirus 36 (AD36)-specific antibodies and obesity in children." In other words, the goal was to find a relationship between the two, even if no such relationship actually exists, and the researchers did just that.

The interesting thing about the study is that, while researchers admitted that no clear cause-and-effect relationship actually exists between AD36 antibodies and obesity, they suggest that further research may eventually determine this and lead to the development of "prevention and treatment" interventions for the "disease".

So what's next, a childhood obesity vaccine?

It most likely will not be long before another similar study is released that claims childhood obesity is a contagious disease that requires treatment. Drug companies will then develop preventive drugs for normal-weight children, just in case they happen to come in contact with someone who has the fat virus. And of course they will produce treatments for obese children as well.

The drugs will allegedly fight the antibodies that cause obesity and help children to attain a healthy weight without having to stop eating junk food and drinking sodas. What could be better for both the corporate food industry and Big Pharma?

Who knows, the medical establishment may just develop an obesity vaccine that they say will prevent everyone from getting fat. Children will be required to get the vaccine before being permitted to go to school, of course, because they could spread the obesity virus to their classmates. And many parents will immediately jump onboard because if the doctors recommend it, then it must be good!

As ridiculous as this all sounds, such a scenario is more likely than you might think. Modern "science" continues to waste millions of dollars on studies that pretend that all modern ills are caused by bad genes, dangerous viruses and mutant bacterias that only drugs can treat. They would rather have you forget about genetically modified foods, mercury in vaccines, fluoride in water, BPA in plastics, toxins in household products, chemical additives and preservatives in personal care products, poor diet, lack of physical exercise and every other thing that actually contributes to bad health.

In truth, obesity is not contagious, but there is something dangerous that continues to spread like an epidemic: really bad science reporting in the mainstream media and a gullible population that continues to listen to it.

Sources for this story include:

http://health.usnews.com/health-news/diet-fi...

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/co...