Richard Johnson, MD explains metabolic syndrome: the presence of any three of five markers including abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, insulin resistance, elevated triglycerides, and low HDL. About one quarter of adults have it, typically overweight and pre-diabetic.
Chapters
What would you say is your definition on metabolic syndrome and how it comes about?
Well, historically, metabolic syndrome was viewed as a syndrome of where you had to have three out of five different criteria, you know, which included abdominal obesity or waist circumference. You had to have a high, you kind of on the high side of blood pressure. You had to have evidence for insulin resistance or impaired fasting glucose, elevated triglycerides and a low HDL cholesterol. But really, people think of metabolic syndrome as the classic overweight pre diabetic individual that makes up about one quarter of our adult population. My work really tried to identify what the cause of metabolic syndrome is and what the consequences of it are.