What is metabolic syndrome?
Metabolic syndrome (also known as syndrome X) is a group of risk factors that can cause serious chronic conditions such as heart disease and diabetes. If you are overweight, have high blood pressure and high levels of sugar or fats in your blood, you may suffer from metabolic syndrome.
How can you reduce your risk of metabolic syndrome?
Some of the ways you can reduce your risk include:
1. Exercise
- The amount and type of exercise depends on your fitness level. You should work towards the goal of walking for 30 to 60 minutes at least 5 days a week.
- If you are already exercising regularly, consider adding resistance exercises (e.g. carrying low weight dumbbells) to build muscle strength.
2. Diet
- Start by eating fewer calories, eating less at each meal and avoiding dessert or food cooked using unhealthy methods.
- Try to eat less saturated fat, have smaller portions or leaner cuts of meat.
- Eat more whole grains and include fruits and vegetables in your diet. Every individual should have at least 2 servings of fruit and two servings of vegetables daily.
Small changes like these will bring you huge benefits to your health so start making the changes today.
Treatment of metabolic syndrome
Since physical inactivity and excess weight are the main risk factors to developing metabolic syndrome, getting more exercise and losing weight can help reduce the risk or prevent the associated complications.
Medications may be prescribed to manage some of the underlying diseases such as hypertension, abnormal cholesterol levels and diabetes.
