US researcher Dr Nikhil Dhurundbar believes that a virus is responsible for the obesity epidemic that is sweeping across the Western world. According to Dhurundbar, blood tests revealed that 30% of obese people had antibodies indicating that they had been exposed to a virus known as AD36, compared with just 5% of non-obese people. Dhurundbar, who works at Wayne State University, Michigan, who tested humans after studying a similar virus in chickens, said of his findings: “I was very excited and I was very convinced that this is an important finding.” However, his theory has been met with much scepticism. Stephen Bloom, an endocrinologist at Imperial College, part of the UK’s University of London, said: “We know that obesity has been growing at a very constant rate for about 50 years and the cause is obvious. People are eating much more and taking less exercise. Why do we need to invent some strange theory about a virus?”
SOURCE/REFERENCE: Reported by www.theGuardian.co.uk on the 3rd January 2003
