By Staff
Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined being happy at the prospect of having a virus.
You probably haven't ever had that thought either, unless you are more than 35 or 40 pounds (or more) overweight. But, since I recently read an article claiming a virus may be the cause for my being a little on the chunky side, I have been ecstatic.
Apparently a physician in Virginia has determined the adenovirus-36, or ad-36, can cause obesity in otherwise thin animals.
I realize I'm not an animal, but since that is all we have to go on with this virus, I'll take it. Testing has also been done on people for the virus as well. According to the information I read, 502 people had blood samples tested and about 30 percent of the obese people had antibodies to ad-36. That means that at some point those folks had been exposed to the virus. The tested people weighed, on average, about 50 pounds more than those people who hadn't been exposed to the virus.
This information has me happy in many ways. The first happy point is, of course, there is a reason for my excess weight. I can now blame my tight pants on the virus instead of those potato chips, fried chicken and hamburgers I've consumed over the years.
Another happy point is that I can stop being jealous of all the skinny women I know. I can now say it's because they haven't been infected with the ad-virus and not because they run, jog, eat tuna and drink water all day long. I'm glad that now I'll be able to spend more time with these thin friends without gritting my teeth or mumbling under my breath about their skinniness.
The only down side to all of this is the doctor who made this discovery is looking for an anti-virus. If, by some chance, an anti-virus is found and a cure for the ad-36 infection is found, I may be in bad shape.
I may have to make some admissions concerning my past (and present) eating habits. That won't be a good thing.
My desire is that the virus won't be the thing that kills me. And if that desire is met, I can only hope that a cure isn't found so that I can continue to use the “I've got the ad-36 virus” excuse for being overweight. If a cure is found, I may be forced to face the fact that I'm not sick, I'm just fat.
Lisa Tindell is news editor for The Brewton Standard. She may be reached by e-mail at lisa.tindell@brewtonstandard.com.