NEXT time you guiltily devour a pot of ice cream, blame it on childhood illness. By damaging a nerve involved in the sensation of creaminess, ear infections may up the odds of obesity in later life.
A team led by Linda Bartoshuk at the University of Florida in Gainesville surveyed 1300 people, 245 of whom had a history of ear infections, and found that among the over-30s, those who had suffered from ear infections were twice as likely to be obese as those with no such history. A subsequent analysis of four US medical databases confirmed the link. Those…
