Do you have the condition that millions of Americans have which puts them at risk for a heart attack or a stroke?
Metabolic syndrome is a constellation of symptoms or conditions that together markedly raises one’s risk for cardiovascular disease. Now the latest findings show even if you don’t have all the traits but just one or two, you’re still at risk.

Most experts believe the main cause of metabolic syndrome is the fat that is so pervasive in our diet today, which is being deposited in greater and greater amounts around our waists.
Dr. Valentine Fuster, a cardiologist at Mt. Sinai Medical Center, says, “The belief is that the obesity leads to high blood pressure and leads to diabetes. It is also thought to cause alterations in the lipids in blood, and the results are a high risk factor profile for coronary heart disease.”
Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of factors that signify future risk for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These include central obesity, or fat in and around the abdomen, even just borderline high blood pressure, borderline high blood sugar, a high triglyceride level, and a low HDL, a beneficial form of cholesterol.
Now, American Heart Association research shows patients with even just one or two metabolic syndrome traits, but not the full blown syndrome, or those with the metabolic syndrome but without diabetes were at increased risk for death from coronary heart disease and cardiovascular diseases.
Compared to people with no metabolic syndrome factors, the risk of death due to coronary heart disease was twice as high for those with one to two factors and three-and-a-half times higher for people with true metabolic syndrome, meaning three or more factors.
One of those factors would include early signs of diabetes. The thinking is that diabetes is a major cause in and of itself for cardiovascular disease. But the study showed even if the person had metabolic syndrome without diabetes, the risk of death overall is still very high, possibly three times that of those without metabolic syndrome.
If the person has any evidence of cardiovascular disease such as an abnormal cardiac catheterization, vascular disease in the legs, a history of minestrone, and also has metabolic syndrome, this is a huge alarm: the risk of death is more than four times greater than those without cardiovascular disease and metabolic syndrome. If you throw in diabetes as one of the symptoms, now the risk of death is almost seven times greater. So this study really shows how obesity, just mild high blood pressure and just mild diabetes can be an incredibly deadly combination.
According to the American Heart Association, the underlying causes of this syndrome are obesity, physical inactivity and genetic factors. The study looked at a large and widely diverse population--it showed 26% of participants had metabolic syndrome; in other words, one out of four of us have it.
And while we can’t change our genetic makeup, we can certainly do the other things to correct the problems of metabolic syndrome.
“Fast food, calories and carbohydrates are a huge part of the problem,” says Dr. Fuster.
The authors recommend physicians provide adequate resources for their patients with metabolic syndrome to improve compliance to diet and exercise regimens.
They say many physicians who may not have the time to counsel patients for an hour on diet and exercise do not refer people with metabolic syndrome to a registered dietitian or exercise specialist when they should.

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