Understanding Metabolic Syndrome


Understanding Metabolic Syndrome - Featured Image

Your weight has a lot to do with what’s going on inside your body. In fact, it can be thought of as a symptom of “Metabolic Syndrome.” Being overweight is correlated with a host of other diseases, from diabetes to cardiovascular disease. With the spread of Metabolic Syndrome, sometimes also called “Syndrome X,” an increasing amount of Americans exhibit the following symptoms (10):

 

    • Poor body composition: fatty weight is kept around the middle and upper parts of the body
    • High blood pressure: Often higher than 130/85 mmHg
    • High cholesterol
    • High Blood Sugar, a likely result of insulin resistance

 

 

If you exhibit these symptoms, you may have a higher risk of stroke, certain types of cancer, heart disease, kidney disease, diabetes, and even poor blood supply to the legs.

 

The realization that all of these health factors may be somehow related to a core underlying cause, however, was a step forward in medical science. If you understand how many of the same problems that cause obesity can cause, say, diabetes, you begin to realize what a complicated system human metabolism is.

 

Diabetes

It’s not a coincidence that as our obesity rates skyrocket, the diabetes outbreak has come along for the ride.

 

After all, diabetes is a disease of metabolism. If you have insulin resistance, a symptom of Metabolic Syndrome, you can develop Type II diabetes, which means your body is not responding adequately to the insulin released by the pancreas to stabilize your blood sugar levels.

 

Today, some 25.8 million people in the United States suffer from diabetes, representing about 1 in every 13 people. Of these, 7 million people with diabetes don’t even know they have it.

 

Combine this with some 80 million people suffering from pre-diabetes, and the numbers start to mirror the obesity epidemic.

 

Unsurprisingly, people who suffer from diabetes run many of the same risks as those with Metabolic Syndrome: high blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, along with other unpleasant side effects like neuropathic pain and even limb amputation.

 

According to the International Diabetes Federation, 350 million people suffer from this condition globally, which is expected to more than double by 2030.

 

While conventional medicine and traditional nutritional recommendations for preventing and overcoming diabetes are only slowly coming on board, millions are transforming their problems through a high fat, low carb diet like we teach in our clinics.

 

Please join us March 28, for our Dinner With The Docs as we address your diabetes questions!