Virus boosts fat in chickens and mice
By Ruth Bennett
Sniffling and sneezing, pinkeye, and diarrhea are bad enough. Now, extra body fat? The growing litany of indignities caused by adenoviruses, a set of normally nonlethal but annoying pathogens, appears to be taking an unusual direction.
Researchers at the University of Wisconsin–Madison report in the August International Journal of Obesity that chickens and mice injected with Ad-36, an adenovirus that causes colds in people, have more body fat than uninfected animals.
After 5 weeks, chickens infected with Ad-36 didn’t actually weigh more than uninfected ones. But they had significantly more body fat, less body protein, and lower blood concentrations of cholesterol and triglycerides than control chickens did. Mice receiving an Ad-36 injection were significantly heavier and had 35 percent more body fat than uninfected mice did.