Syndrome X is a term used a describe a set of cardiovascular risk factors that includes glucose or insulin disturbances, high blood cholesterol and triglyceride levels, elevated blood pressure, and upper-body obesity. Other terms to describe this syndrome are the metabolic cardiovascular risk syndrome (MCVS), Raven’s syndrome, insulin resistance syndrome, and atherothrombogenic syndrome. While there is a push to abandon the term syndrome X, it has nonetheless persisted.
The underlying metabolic denominator in syndrome X is elevated insulin levels. There is little doubt what contributes to these elevations : an elevated intake of refined carbohydrate. The results from a recent 25-year study add support to the contention that prolonged consumption of refined sugars and the resulting elevations in insulin eventually leads to type II diabetes. This study showed that the development of type II diabetes was preceded by elevations of serum insulin values and insulin insensitivity. Typically, these defects presented themselves decades before the development of diabetes.
Hypoglycemia, increased insulin secretion, syndrome X, and type II diabetes can be viewed as a progression of the same illness : a maladaptation to the “Western diet.” The human body was simply not designed to handle the amount of refined sugar, salt, saturated fats, and other harmful food compounds that many people in Western countries (and increasingly other countries like ours) feed it. The result is that a metabolic syndrome emerges — elevated insulin levels, obesity, elevated blood cholesterol and triglycerides, and high blood pressure. Syndrome X is the label that modern medicine has chosen to ascribe to a condition caused by poor dietary and lifestyle choices. It seems a bit silly for medical researchers to be spending millions of dollars to develop drugs (”magic bullets”) instead of working on ways to better aid people in choosing a healthier diet and lifestyle.

Investigations indicate that insulin stimulates protein synthesis by increasing transport of amino acids into cells and at the same time stimulating nucleic acids, particularly RNA and the messenger RNA, which is especially involved in protein synthesis. Insulin has been shown to stimulate RNA synthesis in many cases. Thus it appears that insulin primarily promotes protein synthesis through its effect upon the RNA synthesis. Moreover the secondary effect of insulin is in increasing carbohydrate metabolism and formation of ATP supply energy for protein synthesis.
In the diabetic patient, glucose can not be fully utilized for the production of energy and the deficiency of glucose is compensated by the utilization of fat and protein. Breakdown of protein serves as a second source of energy. In the diabetic patient, tissue catabolism and increased excretion of nitrogen produce a negative nitrogen balance.
Thus it has been established that the anabolic and catabolic processes of the three essential food constituents (carbohydrate fat and protein) are insulin dependent.
The role of insulin, therefore, appears to be as follows •
1. It facilitates the passage of glucose through cell barriers into the cells.
2. It effects the phosphorylation of glucose.
3. It also plays a role in oxidative phosphorylation and
4. It is essential to lipid and protein catabolism and anabolism.

Diabetes can be treated effectively with the co-operation of the patient. If you have a high glucose level in the urine and blood the first and most important thing to do is to control the diet. Cut down sugar completely if you are a clear cut diabetic case. This will bring down the sugar level to some extent, increase physical activity, do walking, jogging, exercises and if sugar is still high then probably you will need some medicine for the time being, but if you supplement the effort with controlled diet and increased exercise you can gradually cut down on medicine and be able to completely stop it in most cases.
In England people used to consume only 18 lbs of sugar per head per year (till 1850). Now the per capita consumption has reached 90 kg per head in UK and 80 kg. in the USA. Figures for other developed and even developing countries show an increasing trend.
Since the time sugar and white bread have been introduced the incidence has increased. These refined carbohydrates are pin-pointed as causing unprecedented increase in diabetes and heart diseases. On the food front — things are slipping from our hands. We have to gear up our energy and try to reverse the process by changing the food habits. The best part of diabetes is that even if you have it, you can have a normal active prolonged life if you keep tabs on your sugar level through regular checkups.
Diabetes can attack the kidneys, heart or any of the vital organs of the body and cause the end of a useful, productive and purposeful life. Since most diabetic are overweight, reduction in weight is advisable. This can be done by reducing the number of calories consumed per day. This will benefit to decrease the sugar level in blood. Exercise will be an added advantage as it increases the use of calories and reduction of weight will be faster.

Diet therapy is concerned with the modification of the normal diet to meet the requirements of the sick individual. Its purposes are:
1. To maintain good nutritional status.
2. To correct deficiencies.
3. To afford rest to the whole body or the body that is affected.
4. To maintain body’s ability to metabolize the nutrients.
5. To bring about changes in body weight whenever necessary.
Diet therapy in most instances is not a remedy in itself but is a measure which supplements or makes the medical or surgical treatment more effective.
Therapeutic nutrition begins with the normal diet. Advantages of using normal diet as the basis for therapeutic diets are :
1. It emphasizes the similarity of psychologic and social needs of those who are ill and those who are well, even though there is a quantitative and qualitative difference in requirements.
2. Food preparation is simplified when the modified diet is based upon the family pattern and the number of items required in special preparation is reduced to a minimum.
3. The calculated values for the basic plan are useful in finding out the effects of addition or omission of certain foods, for example, if vegetables are restricted vitamin A and C deficiency can occur.

Sugar, jaggery and honey should not be used in cooking. Flour, cheese, groundnut powder and coconut have considerable food value and should not be added as “free foods” (food stuffs of low caloric value and low carbohydrate content).
In order to preserve the fibre, vegetables should be cut into large pieces. The skin, seeds and stalk of the vegetables should not be discarded. Whole wheat flour should be used instead of chickpeas flour.
Butter, ghee, and oil should not be poured while cooking but its exact quantity should be measured in terms of teaspoons. The quantity of cooking fat can be cut down by using non-stick pans. Frying should be avoided. Cooking, baking or grilling are preferred.
Saccharin is available in the form of drops or tablets. The tablet should be crushed and mixed with a little warm water before adding to a foodstuff. Saccharin is decomposed by heat, imparting a bitter taste. It is added after foodstuff is prepared and not during boiling or cooking. Not more than two tablets should be added to one serving. Syrup of sorbitol is prepared by mixing 3 parts of water and 7 parts of sorbitol. A cake made with fructose does not rise like the one made with sugar. Cakes made with sorbitol or fructose may appear paler than those made with sugar. If this appearance is not to one’s liking, a little yellow food color may be added. It is bit difficult to beat air into sorbitol or fructose mixture hence the usual beating or whisking time should be doubled. Fructose browns more easily than sugar; hence foods containing fructose should be cooked in the oven at a slightly lower setting than usual. Aspartame is decomposed at high temperature, so it should not be used in baking cakes. Jams made with sugar substitutes should be stored in small jars because once opened, do not last as long as ordinary jams. Fruits or dates can be used to sweeten a dish. A housewife need not prepare separate foodstuffs for a diabetic. The initial stages of cookery are the same for non-diabetic and diabetic persons. Before the last stage that is addition of sugar, jaggery, groundnut powder or grated dry coconut, the housewife should set aside the serving for the diabetic person and then add these food stuffs for the rest of family members.