If you have a certain amount of wellness-risking factors, you may have metabolic syndrome. This disorder, otherwise known as insulin resistance syndrome or syndrome X, indicates your wellbeing is at twice the risk of developing heart disease and 5 times the risk of developing type 2 diabetes.
According to Vivian Fonseca, MD, professor of medicine and pharmacology and chief of endocrinology at Tulane University Health Sciences Centre in New Orleans, ‘Metabolic syndrome is not well-defined’ but is a little bit more than prediabetes. However, ‘much of it is linked with obesity’, says Dr. Fonseca, and there are several other components to it, including high blood pressure and cholesterol problems.
You will be diagnosed with metabolic syndrome if you have at least 3 of these factors: abdominal obesity (a waist circumference of over 35 inches for women and 40 inches for men), high triglycerides of 50 mg/dL or more, levels of HDL or ‘good’ cholesterol below 40 mg/dL in men and below 50 mg/dL in women, blood pressure over 130/85, or you are taking medication to control blood pressure and high fasting blood sugar, which is a blood sugar level of 100 mg/dL or greater after not eating for at least eight hours, or you are taking medication to control blood sugar.
There is a strong link between metabolic syndrome and type 2 diabetes, because metabolic syndrome can increase your resistance to insulin, which means that your body is not able to use insulin properly to remove blood sugar from your blood. However, you can prevent metabolic syndrome by making changes in diet and exercise habits, and even if you’ve already been diagnosed with metabolic syndrome, making appropriate lifestyle changes can prevent it from turning into diabetes.
Firstly, maintain a healthy weight – even overweight or obese people can cut their risk of diabetes in half and reduce their risk of metabolic syndrome just by losing as little as 5-10% of their body weight. Being active is a great way to achieve this, and it’s recommended that you get thirty minutes of physical activity a day most days of the week to control your weight, lower your blood pressure, and help your body to use insulin more effectively. Smoking and alcohol need to be eliminated from your lifestyle to reduce your risk of metabolic syndrome, and finally get a good night’s sleep of 7-8 hours, and have regular check ups to make sure you’ve not the syndrome, or prediabetes.
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