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Scientists are now looking into great detail at an adenovisus called AD-36 that may actually cause and spread obesity. Imagine being able to "catch" a fat virus from another person? No longer will we have genetics and fast food restaurants to blame for our belly fat but possibly a virus that we can catch from a coworker or the person sitting next to us on a plane.

An adenovirus is normally virus that infects humans with respiratory aliments such as tonsillitis, whooping cough and other viruses such as meningitis. However Dr. Nikhil V. Dhurandhar, who is a professor at Wayne State University in Michigan, and who works at Pennington Biomedical Research Center found in his research of studying chickens, that this virus can spread from one animal to another making the second chicken over weight with excess fat.

Dr. Dhurandhar then decided to test his AD-36 virus theory on us humans to see if this obesity virus only affected animals or if we too could have one more reason to blame why we have thunder thighs.

Testing volunteers in both the UK and the US, Dr. Dhurandhar found that the majority of overweight volunteers did indeed have the AD-36 virus and that those who were not overweight did not have the virus. No, he did not try to infect these subjects, but just did blood tests to see if AD-36 was present.

Further testing on monkeys and mice appeared to agree with the original findings and that once subjected to AD-36, the animal's body composition had changed to include more fat, even though their diet was not changed. Although current testing and studies are looking into this virus more in depth any vaccines or treatments for humans are still many, many years away.

Scientists also can not agree that this virus can indeed cause obesity in those who eat a healthy diet and exercise regularly, and say that it is just too soon to start pointing a finger at a virus for all of our obesity issues.

With the epidemic of obesity circulating the world today, it does make you wonder whether there is a slight chance that much of this has been caused by a virus. Is is possible that somewhere in a starving country, a virus mutated to help keep these these people alive, only to be spread to nations where food is plentiful? Right now the jury is out, and until there is conclusive evidence we should all take it upon ourselves to be responsible for our own over weight and bloated bodies.

For now, we should continue to avoid empty high calorie and fatty foods, hit the gym and continue our normal exercise workouts but remember to leave one eye open just in case AD-36 shows up on our local news program.

Who knows....maybe there will one day be the miracle diet pill related to AD-36 on the market. Then what will our excuses be?

Patricia is a health focused content author. To keep up with the latest diet, fitness and heath information be sure to visit Patricia's site regularly. Flatten Your Belly, Lose Those Thunder Thighs & Get Perfect Six Pack Abs Quickly