Is there any link between visceral obesity and adenovirus infections in the Polish population?

BACKGROUND

Obesity is a chronic disease of multiple etiologies. Alongside the traditionally recognized causes of obesity, such as genetic inheritance and behaviour/environmental factors, in recent years adenoviral infections have been considered as a possible cause of obesity. Although numerous studies involving animals confirmed a strong relation between adenoviral infection and increased predisposition to obesity, an association of AdVs with human obesity has not been established conclusively.

OBJECTIVES

The main aim of this study was to establish an association between seroprevalence of adenoviruses and obesity in the Polish population.

MATERIAL AND METHODS

Eighty-six subjects (both obese and non-obese) participated in this study. The presence and the concentration of typically non-specific antibodies to human adenoviruses in serum were determined using ELISA immunoassay. A serum lipid-profile was evaluated using commercial tests.

RESULTS

A total of 89.5% of subjects were positive for AdV-IgG (n = 77); 10.5% (n = 9) were negative. In non-obese or lean AdV-IgG positive subjects, the parameters as: body weight (63.5 vs. 57.0, p = 0.02), WHR (0.77 vs. 0.73, p = 0.02) and waist circumference (74.5 vs. 69.0, p = 0.01) were significantly higher as AdV-IgG negative individuals.

CONCLUSIONS

We showed that there is an association between the presence of type unspecific anti-AdV antibodies in the serum and elevated body weight, BMI, WHR and waist circumference in lean and non-obese subjects from the Polish population.