Fat people could have caught obesity
Obesity can be caught like the cold virus through coughs, sneezes and dirty hands, it has been claimed.
The cold-like virus can attack tissue and cause fat cells to multiply leading to massive weight gain say scientists.
Professor Nikhil Dhurandhar of The Pennington Biomedical Research Center, in Louisiana said almost a third of obese adults carry the virus compared with just 11 per cent of lean men and women.
He said tests on mice and chickens showed those with the AD-36 bug gained weight faster then uninfected animals, irrespective of what they ate.
Weight gain is said to last for three months until the body had built up a resistance, but Prof Dhurandhar says it is useless to try avoiding catching the bug
"People could be fat for reasons other than viral infections, so it’s pointless for fat people to try to avoid infection," he said.
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