
What is Metabolic Syndrome?
According to the Mayo Clinic, metabolic syndrome is classified as “a cluster of conditions that occur together, increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes. These conditions include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels”. If you are experiencing 2 or more of these conditions, then you are considered to have metabolic syndrome. Some medical experts suggest that if you even suffer with one of these conditions, your likely hood of progressing and experiencing an additional risk factor significantly increases.
The bad news is that if you are dealing with metabolic syndrome, you risk for heart disease, stroke and type 2 diabetes is very high. The good news is that these conditions are almost entirely dictated by your lifestyle and nutrition choices.
What Causes Metabolic Syndrome?
The cluster of conditions that define metabolic syndrome include high blood pressure, abnormal cholesterol, abnormal triglycerides, high belly fat and high blood sugar. These conditions are all cause by your lifestyle and nutrition habits. One of the main contributors is insulin resistance. Insulin is a hormone secreted by your pancreas, mainly after consuming carbohydrates (i.e sugar). Your digestive system breaks down carbohydrates into smaller sugar molecules so that your body can use as energy, store in your muscles and liver as glycogen, or convert and store as fat.
You become insulin resistance when this function is impaired, and your body stops taking in the sugar molecules. This in turn will result in high blood sugar, increased blood pressure, high belly fat and so on. This can happen due to excess refine carbohydrate consumption, lack of exercise, and impaired hormonal function. This cascade leads to becoming overweight and/or obese.
How To Prevent Or Reverse Metabolic Syndrome?
As terrible as this may seem, metabolic syndrome can be effectively managed and reversed with proper lifestyle and nutrition habits. Below are a few preventative measures that you can take to reduce your risk of developing metabolic syndrome and the serious more life threatening complications that are associated:
- Avoid/reduce your intake of fast food and processed food products.
- Completely avoid vegetable oils (i.e canola oil, mazola oil, rapeseed oil, sunflower oil)
- Limit refined carbohydrate consumption
- Exercise daily
- Don’t Smoke
- Maintain a healthy weight
Summary
Metabolic syndrome is a condition that plagues many Americans. Roughly 75 million American adults have high blood pressure – that’s 1 out of 3. Another 1 out of 3 has elevated blood pressure, known as prehypertension. Over 1/3 of American adults have prediabetes, and 90% of that number have no clue. Living with these conditions poses serious risk, and should not be taken lightly. The last thing you want to do is depend on prescription drugs from your doctor, which completely ignores the root cause of your issue. You can control and/reverse these condition with a well thought out lifestyle and nutrition program.
Please comment below, or reach out to me directly if you or someone you know can benefit from a lifestyle and nutrition program and working 1 on 1 with a certified Health and Nutrition Coach.