Metabolic syndrome is associated with the increased risk of developing more serious chronic illnesses, such as cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. In addition to elevated blood pressure and triglycerides, several other risk factors for heart disease may also be present in a person suffering from metabolic syndrome, including elevated levels of "bad" LDL cholesterol (hypercholesterolemia) and altered body composition, an unfavorable ratio of unhealthy fat to healthier lean body tissues, such as muscle. As many as 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. has insulin resistance, even though most don't know it. About 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. has high blood pressure. More than 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. are overweight or obese and therefore at greater risk for metabolic syndrome and heart disease. One in 3 adults in the U.S. may have metabolic syndrome, and the likelihood increases with age. More than 1 in 3 adults in the U.S. have one or more forms of cardiovascular disease. According to Scott M. Grundy, metabolic syndrome affects one-third of the U.S. population and about 20-to-30 percent of human beings worldwide, more in certain populations. Metabolic syndrome is becoming prevalent even in developing and underdeveloped countries, but because of the high percentage of youths in those countries, incidence often appears lower. Grundy predicts prevalence will rise as these populations age and become more affluent. (1) The effects of metabolic syndrome are far-reaching, both in regard to the health of the afflicted and to their societies and communities. Onset an individual often leads to diseases like diabetes mellitus (DM), cardiovascular disease (CV), stroke, and more, with severely negative consequences that reverberate economically across the society in which the individual lives. Some studies estimate healthcare costs at up to 20 percent higher for those with than for those without metabolic syndrome. Patients with metabolic syndrome have greater drug expenditures, more frequent hospitalizations, and higher utilization of outpatient and physician services than the rest of the population. (2) Metabolic syndrome is not as well known or as precisely defined as diabetes or HTN, so efforts to prevent it are minimal. Most physicians are either barely aware of it, or as is so often the case in conventional medicine, the syndrome simply is not deemed a problem and is not addressed until it leads to a disease routinely studied in medical school. One of the most consistent predisposing factors in developing metabolic syndrome is obesity, now designated a disease in its own right. At a glance, a physician examining an obese person whose abdomen is wider than their chest should immediately suspect metabolic syndrome and check for the condition’s other components. By spotting the symptoms early, taking prompt action, and putting the patient on a plants-only diet, the physician can prevent the dire consequences of metabolic syndrome. The obesity epidemic associated with metabolic syndrome results from drastic changes to the standard American diet (SAD) our diet in recent decades. As humans have gone from eating mostly plants to significant quantities of highly processed and animal-derived foods, metabolic syndrome has become widespread in the U.S. With China and other large and increasingly affluent countries moving relentlessly toward SAD, metabolic syndrome is rapidly becoming a global pandemic, hitting some developing countries before they amass the wealth to support a fundamentally unhealthy populace. With the misguided global drift toward SAD, obesity increasingly afflicts the more affluent persons in developing countries, who are consuming ever more red meat (mostly processed) (4), rich desserts, beverages high in sugar, high-fat dairy products, other high-fat foods, and refined grains -- foods euphemistically described as "Western Diets" having become the norm in developed countries. According to a World Health Organization (WHO) nutritional report, "the world has made significant progress in raising food consumption per person. The growth in food consumption has been accompanied by significant structural changes and a shift in diet away from staples such as roots and tubers towards more livestock products and vegetable oils throughout the decades." The report further states, "There has been remarkable increase in the intake of dietary fats over the past three decades all over the world, and this increase has taken place practically everywhere except in Africa, where consumption levels have stagnated and dietary fat intake has increased, respectively, by 14 and 4 g per capita in developing and industrialized countries." The organization elaborates: Detecting metabolic syndrome at an early stage makes possible simple preventive measures that can mitigate impacts of the disease, lessening chances of a lifetime of suffering from symptoms and diseases linked to the syndrome, as well as enormous negative economic consequences. The economic benefits of preventing chronic degenerative diseases easily avoided through diet are enormous in developed countries and, more importantly – in terms of societies relative capacities to defray costs of disease – in developing and underdeveloped countries where healthcare systems are already over-burdened and on the verge of collapse due to diseases related to poverty. According to the "thrifty genotype" theory, few if any changes in human genes or sequencing of genes have occurred over the past 10,000 years. However, our genetic expression has changed due environmental changes: processed foods, toxic waste, changes to air and water quality, and our species’ increasingly sedentary lifestyle. Consumption of processed and nutrient-poor foods and animal-derived foods and our increasing consumption of highly processed, sugar-filled foods have led to detrimental changes in our physiology. Adding to impacts on health is exposure to pesticides, herbicides, heavy metals, and other environmental toxins that our bodies cannot eliminate, which cause metabolic disturbances. With modernity and advances in technology, our physical activity levels have reached new lows. We have gone from perpetually active apes on the tropical savanna, for hundreds of millennia depending for survival on expert plant-foraging and strength, speed, and agility to avoid predation, to fat and pale ones, lounging in comfortably furnished permanent shelters and automobiles, our natural predators and other dangerous animals exterminated who used to keep us moving. These lifestyle changes contribute to the genotypic and phenotypic changes we are currently experiencing. Some of my own experiences with patients as a physician support the argument that changing from the original, naturally occurring human plant diet to animal-derived foods and processed foods high in simple sugars is a major factor in the alarming increases in diabetes (11, 12), HTN, CV, cancer (7), and other serious diseases. As a physician working in the U.S. city of Houston, Texas, and undertaking humanitarian medical missions in Ethiopia, I have witnessed the consequences of eating animal-derived foods and processed foods high in simple sugars – ubiquitous in Houston and increasing in affluent communities in Ethiopia. In both locales, the incidence of DM, HTN, CVD, and other chronic degenerative diseases are reaching epidemic proportions compared to the very low incidence of such diseases in most rural African villages where the "innovative" foods are virtually non-existent. On a typical day of medical practice in Houston, 18-to-20 of the 20-to-25 patients I see over the age of 40 with chronic symptoms have one or more of the diseases commonly associated with metabolic syndrome and obesity.
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