Metabolic Syndrome: Lifestyle Factors and Prevention
Metabolic syndrome: one-third of U.S. adults.
Conversations about health—whether between neighbors or between clinicians and patients—often revolve around weight problems, blood pressure, blood sugar, and cholesterol levels. Taken together, these are the cardiovascular risk factors referred to as metabolic syndrome.
In the United States, more than one-third of all adults have metabolic syndrome. This is an astonishing figure, especially because these risk factors can be modified.
What keeps some who are obese or overweight ‘metabolically healthy’?
In recent years, researchers have learned that some people who are overweight or obese do not demonstrate the other risk factors that are part of metabolic syndrome, and therefore these people have a lower-than-expected risk of cardiovascular disease. In a study reported in this month’s AJN (“Examining the Links Between Lifestyle Factors and Metabolic Syndrome“), a group of Taiwanese nurse researchers set out to learn whether there might be lifestyle factors that keep this subgroup of people “metabolically healthy,” protecting them from the other cardiovascular risk factors that usually come with extra weight.
Lifestyle factors associated with prevention.
Dr. Shu-Hung Chang and colleagues performed community-based physical exams on more than 700 people in northern Taiwan and questioned them about lifestyle factors including smoking, drinking, exercise, and the foods they ate. […]