Insulin Resistance: Metabolic Syndrome Increases Your Risk Of Diabetes And Heart Disease

What's the difference between a syndrome and a disease?

A syndrome is a combination of symptoms that add up to a specific disease or the high risk of a disorder.

Metabolic syndrome, for instance, indicates a set of symptoms that creates a high risk of two health problems that are of great interest to HSI members: heart disease and type 2 diabetes. (Metabolic syndrome is sometimes referred to as metabolic syndrome X, so for our purposes in this e-Alert I'll abbreviate it as 'MSX.')

Fortunately, there are ways to address metabolic syndrome without resorting to drugs. In fact, a new study shows that a fairly simple dietary change may help reduce the risk of developing MSX. But those who try to incorporate this change into their diet need to be careful about their food choices, or they could end up actually increasing their risk.

The whole is greater than the parts
The definition of MSX varies slightly, depending on guidelines established by different health organisations, but the core symptoms include the following:

• Excessive abdominal fat
• Elevated blood pressure (130/85 or higher)
• Low HDL cholesterol level (Less than 50 in women, less than 40 in men)
• Elevated Triglyceride level
• Elevated C-reactive protein level
• Fasting glucose level that indicates insulin resistance/glucose intolerance

The presence of three or more of these symptoms is enough to diagnose MSX. And it hardly needs pointing out that these symptoms add up to a very troubling combination of health risks.

For instance, a 2002 study at the University of Kuopio in Finland attempted to establish the relative risk of heart disease associated with MSX. Using records from The Kuopio Ischaemic Heart Disease Risk Factor Study, researchers examined data on more than 1,200 men (aged 42-60) collected for about 11 years. In 1984, at the outset of the study, none of the men had either heart disease or diabetes.

Nearly 15 percent of the subjects developed MSX over the 10-plus years. The men in this group were more than three times more likely to die of heart disease than those who didn't develop the syndrome.

According to the World Health Organisation, almost one third of all middle-aged men and women may be at risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

The insulin connection
Unfortunately, many doctors simply treat the symptoms of MSX individually instead of addressing the syndrome as a whole with regular exercise, dietary changes and supplements of key nutrients such as omega-3 fatty acids. Now a new study confirms that whole-grains may be an important dietary factor in reducing the risk of MSX.

As reported in the journal Diabetes Care, a group of researchers from Harvard and Tufts University used six years of data collected from the Framingham Offspring Study to examine associations between carbohydrate intake, insulin resistance and the incidence of metabolic syndrome in more than 2,800 subjects.

Analysis of the data produced these two results concerning insulin resistance: 1) Those with a high intake of total dietary fibre, fruit fibre, cereal fibre and whole grains had a low risk of insulin resistance, and 2) Those whose diets had a high glycemic index (GI) and glycemic load had a high risk of developing insulin resistance.

As for metabolic syndrome, high risk of MSX was associated with high glycemic load, while those with the highest intake of whole grains and cereal fibre were less likely to develop the syndrome. The researchers speculate that a high intake of whole grains may reduce the risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

And while that might be true for many people, the fact is that products labelled 'whole wheat' or 'whole grain' in the average supermarket will probably not meet the criteria for lowering MSX risk.

There's whole... and then there's 'whole'
MSX is a complex health challenge. So simply upping whole grain intake will not be a silver bullet answer to avoiding metabolic syndrome. But avoiding phoney whole grain breads, cereals and other products just might help keep the syndrome at bay.

US physician Dr William Campbell Douglass says about processed breakfast cereals: 'If you start your day the Kellogg way, you'll get what you deserve - obesity and diabetes. Cereal, muffins, and other standard breakfast offerings contain massive amounts of sugar - or pure carbohydrates that your body converts to sugar. Bombarding your system with these foods every morning will make your pancreas work overtime to produce insulin - and wearing out your pancreas will lead to diabetes.

'Oatmeal is an excellent example of where you can see the difference between processed and unprocessed for yourself. Purchase a box of Quaker Oats ('Old Fashioned - 100% natural') and a can of McCann's steel-cut, Irish oatmeal (made in Ireland). Open the lids and compare. They don't even look like the same grain! And the taste difference is remarkable - Quakers is mushy, McCann's is crunchy. Once you go natural, you will never turn back.'