Do You Have Metabolic Syndrome?

Research shows that 1 out of 3 Americans are living with Metabolic Syndrome today.  And if you're like most people with the condition, you had the condition between 3 – 5 years when you were diagnosed.  If you're age 65, it's estimated that 77% of your age group is either diabetic or pre-diabetic.  And 35% of adults aged 20 or older have metabolic syndrome.  

Now, after reading these statistics you may be wondering how our society is collectively caring for its health - including our prevailing food choices and lifestyle habits. 

For those of you not familiar with the term, Metabolic Syndrome is also known as Insulin Resistance, Pre-Diabetes, or Syndrome X. It's basically a group of inter-related symptoms and disorders that can lead to cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and hormonal imbalances such as polycystic ovary disease.  When you have insulin resistance, normal amounts of insulin are not able to produce a normal insulin response from fat, muscles, and the liver cells. And if it occurs for an extended period of time it leads to diabetes.

So what's happening in your body?

When you don't have a normal insulin response in your body, your entire metabolic system goes into a fasting- state.  What this means is that the body doesn’t think it's getting and/or utilizing the nutrients that it needs in order to function properly - so it goes into fasting mode.  When it's in fasting mode, your body actually reserves energy output by LOWERING some of your metabolic functions.  This mechanism was set into our bodies as far back as pre-historic times when we were hunters and gatherers and didn’t know where our next meal was coming from.  So what you now have is a body that's in an over-fed state and can not function the way it should be.  The body can’t recognize that it's being over-fed because it's simply not able to recognize and process the nutrients.

To better give you a clear picture of what's happening to your body, I want to talk about a couple of the organs that are involved.  I'm going to continue this new series on Metabolic Syndrome over the next month and my next post will cover the liver, its function, and how it is involved in metabolic syndrome.   I hope you'll stay tuned.

Now, before I sign off today, let me share with you a video on Youtube by an endocrinologist named Dr. Robert Lustig. It’s received over two million hits.  You might be surprised so many people would be interested, but he explains very well why the overload of fructose is so damaging to our bodies.  Consider this video some background information for you as we continue this series... 

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Debi Farley is a licensed acupuncturists, Certified Holistic Health Practitioner and the owner of Acupuncture Clinic of Richmond, Virginia.  Find out more about Debi Farley at www.debifarely.com.