Abstract
Background. Human adenovirus-36 (Ad-36) is thought to induce obesity by a direct effect of the viral E4orf1 gene on lipogenic enzymes in host adipocytes. Ad-36 prevalence is 30% in obese adults, but prevalence has not been reported in childhood obesity. Objectives. To determine the prevalence of Ad-36 infection in obese Korean children (age 14.8 ± 1.9; range 8.3–6.3 years); correlation of infection with BMI z-score and other obesity measures. Methods. Blood was drawn at the annual school physical exam or clinic visit; Ad-36 status was determined by serum neutralization assay; and routine serum chemistry values. Results. A total of 30% of subjects were positive (N = 25) for Ad-36; 70% were negative (N = 59). Significantly higher BMI z-scores (1.92 vs. 1.65, p < 0.01) and waist circumferences (96.3 vs. 90.7 cm, p = 0.05) were found in infected versus uninfected children. Cardiovascular risk factors were not significantly different. Conclusions. Ad-36 infection is common in obese Korean children and correlates highly with obesity. Ad-36 may have played a role in the obesity and Type 2 diabetes epidemic in children.
Acknowledgement
We thank Susan Ward for laboratory assistance in performing the serum neutralization assays.
Funding/Conflicts: The study was funded by internal funds from the Obetech Obesity Research Center, Richmond, VA and funds from LG Life Science to the Department of Pediatrics at the National Police Hospital, Seoul, Korea (for shipping samples to the USA) and from the Health Promotion Team to the Department of Pediatrics of the National Medical Center, Seoul, Korea (for sample collection). Richard Atkinson is the owner and Jia He is Laboratory Director of Obetech, LLC, a company that provides assays for adenoviruses that produce obesity and has several patents in the area of virus-induced obesity. Insil Lee and Hye-Jung Shin do not have any financial or other conflicts. Abstracts of these data were presented at the 2008 Annual Meeting of The Obesity Society and the 2008 Annual Meeting of the Asia Pacific Paediatric Endocrine Society.
Declaration of interest: The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.