AD-36, first isolated in 1978 from the feces of a girl suffering from diabetes and enteritis,[1] has long been recognized as a cause of respiratory and eye infections in humans.

[3][4] AD-36 infection can induce cellular differentiation of 3T3-L1 preadipocytes and stem cells derived from human adipose tissue.

[5] There has been a positive correlation between body fat and the presence of AD-36 antibodies in the blood.

[8] On March 18, 2006, the research of Richard Atkinson (University of Wisconsin) was posted on some websites.

[citation needed] On January 26, 2009, many popular internet news portals ran reports of the pending release of scientific research by Professor Nikhil Dhurandhar (Pennington Biomedical Research Center, Louisiana) implicating AD-36 as a potential cause for Britain's relatively high rate of adult obesity.