Diabetes Information

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.

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