A person with metabolic syndrome has three or more of the following:
• A large waist (forty inches or more for men and thirty-four inches or more for women; to measure your waist size, don’t go by your belt measurement—instead, wrap a tape measure around the largest part of your midsection and make sure you keep the tape measure parallel to the floor)
• Borderline or high blood pressure (anything above 130/85 mm Hg)
• A high level of triglycerides (above 150 mg/dL)
• Low HDL (under 40 mg/dL for men or 50 mg/dL for women)
• High fasting blood sugar (above 100 mg/dL)
What does metabolic syndrome do to the body? Doctors and researchers think that metabolic syndrome’s impact on health is more than the sum of its parts. Basically, in people with this disorder, blood sugar levels stay high after a meal or snack instead of dropping to a base level as they do in most people. The pancreas, sensing still-elevated glucose levels, continues to pump out insulin. Constant high levels of insulin and blood sugar have been linked with many harmful changes, including damage to the lining of coronary and other arteries, increased triglyceride levels in the blood, changes in how the kidneys handle salt, and blood that clots more easily. Chronic overstimulation of the pancreas may exhaust it so that it stops supplying enough insulin.
This cascade of changes isn’t healthy. Damage to artery walls, high triglycerides, and increased chance of blood clots can lead to heart attacks and some strokes. Changes in the kidneys’ ability to remove salt contribute to high blood pressure, another path to heart disease and stroke. And dwindling insulin production by the pancreas signals the start of type 2 diabetes, which greatly increases the chances of having a heart attack or stroke, as well as nerve, eye, and kidney damage.
Even after heart disease appears, the metabolic syndrome continues to complicate things. Among almost sixty-five hundred men and women who had bypass surgery, for example, those with metabolic syndrome were four times more likely to have died within eight years of their surgery than those without it. This syndrome was especially hazardous for women, who were thirteen times more likely to have died.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention applied the given definition of metabolic syndrome to almost nine thousand people who took part in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In this sample, about 23 percent had the metabolic syndrome. Applied to the entire United States, this would mean about forty-seven million Americans have this problem. The treatments outlined in the next chapters can decrease the chance that you’ll have the symptoms that characterize metabolic syndrom.
• A large waist (forty inches or more for men and thirty-four inches or more for women; to measure your waist size, don’t go by your belt measurement—instead, wrap a tape measure around the largest part of your midsection and make sure you keep the tape measure parallel to the floor)
• Borderline or high blood pressure (anything above 130/85 mm Hg)
• A high level of triglycerides (above 150 mg/dL)
• Low HDL (under 40 mg/dL for men or 50 mg/dL for women)
• High fasting blood sugar (above 100 mg/dL)
What does metabolic syndrome do to the body? Doctors and researchers think that metabolic syndrome’s impact on health is more than the sum of its parts. Basically, in people with this disorder, blood sugar levels stay high after a meal or snack instead of dropping to a base level as they do in most people. The pancreas, sensing still-elevated glucose levels, continues to pump out insulin. Constant high levels of insulin and blood sugar have been linked with many harmful changes, including damage to the lining of coronary and other arteries, increased triglyceride levels in the blood, changes in how the kidneys handle salt, and blood that clots more easily. Chronic overstimulation of the pancreas may exhaust it so that it stops supplying enough insulin.
This cascade of changes isn’t healthy. Damage to artery walls, high triglycerides, and increased chance of blood clots can lead to heart attacks and some strokes. Changes in the kidneys’ ability to remove salt contribute to high blood pressure, another path to heart disease and stroke. And dwindling insulin production by the pancreas signals the start of type 2 diabetes, which greatly increases the chances of having a heart attack or stroke, as well as nerve, eye, and kidney damage.
Even after heart disease appears, the metabolic syndrome continues to complicate things. Among almost sixty-five hundred men and women who had bypass surgery, for example, those with metabolic syndrome were four times more likely to have died within eight years of their surgery than those without it. This syndrome was especially hazardous for women, who were thirteen times more likely to have died.
Researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention applied the given definition of metabolic syndrome to almost nine thousand people who took part in the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. In this sample, about 23 percent had the metabolic syndrome. Applied to the entire United States, this would mean about forty-seven million Americans have this problem. The treatments outlined in the next chapters can decrease the chance that you’ll have the symptoms that characterize metabolic syndrom.
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