Science News - January 1, 2011

Thank you for great reporting. I’m a longtime subscriber to Science News (since the 1970s) and want to compliment your reporters, writers and editors on the high quality of your articles, which often involve material that is difficult to explain. They make the news of science understandable, informative and entertaining. Hopefully, publications like yours, together with good science education in our schools, will inspire our youth and combat the politicized science and the pseudo-science now prevalent in our society. Leon R. Pacifici, Underhill, Vt.

Viral infection and obesity
The correlation between obesity and
adenovirus- 36 antibodies (SN: 10/9/10,
p. 5) is interesting, but what is causing
what? The article says 22 percent of
obese children and 7 percent of normal-
weight children in the study carried the
antibodies. For a virus as “common” as
the common cold, these seem like low
exposure rates. Is it possible that many
people are exposed but either never
develop or stop producing the antibod-
ies? Or that obese people produce more
of the antibodies than nonobese people?
Tom Lippe, El Cerrito, Calif.

It’s true that cause and effect can’t
be established by association studies,
such as the one by Jeffrey Schwimmer
and colleagues showing a link between
adenovirus- 36 infection and childhood
obesity. But this study is just one of
many, including research showing that
more body fat accumulates in animals
infected with AD- 36. Researchers now
plan to follow groups of people to see
whether body-fat patterns change after
infection with the virus. As for exposure
rates, the common cold is caused by
many different types of viruses, not just
adenoviruses, so the rates in the study
aren’t necessarily low. Adenoviruses
account for only about 8 percent of viral
illnesses, including respiratory and gas-
trointestinal illnesses, Schwimmer says.
In people with normal immune systems,
viral infections lead to antibody produc-
tion, although it may take a few days
or weeks. If anything, obese children
might make fewer antibodies than non-
obese children do, since obesity is linked
to suppression of the immune system.
— Tina Hesman Saey

Correction

The Comment piece by U. S. Geological Survey director Marcia McNutt (SN: 12/18/10, p. 32) reported that, during a well-integrity test in July, the pressure in the Deepwater Horizon oil well was considered too high to take a chance on reopening it. In fact, the concern was that the pressure was too low.

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