Heart Attacker #5: Metabolic Syndrome

You may not know it, but metabolic syndrome may be steering you toward heart disease.

What You Don't Know Can Hurt You

You can’t see it. You can’t feel it. But metabolic syndrome -- out-of-whack body chemistry that may affect more than half of all American adults -- quadruples heart attack risk and doubles stroke risk. The culprit: higher-than-normal insulin levels that you and your doctor may never, ever discover -- until it’s too late.

Unchecked, metabolic syndrome wreaks havoc with cholesterol levels, blood pressure, and blood clotting and can interfere with the normal, healthy functioning of artery walls in ways that encourage plaque to form. Metabolic syndrome also leads to type 2 diabetes and is now linked to infertility; cancers of the breast, prostate, and colon; and perhaps even Alzheimer’s disease and kidney failure.

What’s driving the rise in this little known and decidedly complex condition? A potbelly and a comfy chair parked in front of the TV. The numbers are rising in tandem with America’s epidemics of obesity and inactivity. At least 47 million of us are believed to have metabolic syndrome, and some experts estimate that every overweight adult and child in America -- 64 percent of us -- may have it.

The condition is a basic malfunction of the body systems that keep your cells supplied with blood sugar, their preferred fuel. Say you just ate a bowl of oatmeal. Normally, levels of the hormone insulin rise slightly after you eat a meal, persuading cells to absorb the blood sugar provided by your breakfast. In metabolic syndrome, though, the cells can’t obey insulin’s signal.

Why? Fat itself is the driving force. Researchers just recently figured out that belly fat -- the visceral fat you’ve already read about -- pumps some surprising chemicals into the bloodstream, including immune system messengers called cytokines. The constant flood of cytokines interferes with the absorption of blood sugar by muscle and liver cells. Basically, cytokines block signals from insulin to cells to let sugar in.

Now you’ve got cells that have no fuel and blood sugar building up in the bloodstream -- two dangerous situations. Your pancreas responds by producing more insulin. Ultimately, the insulin overcomes the cytokines, and cells get the blood sugar they need.

• Diabetes
• • Fight Disease
• • Heart Disease

• Heart Attacker #1: Excess Body Fat
• How concerned should you be about your love handles?
• 
• Heart Attacker #2: Cholesterol
• Cholesterol wreaks havoc on your heart. Are you at risk?
• 
• Heart Attacker #3: High Blood Pressure
• See how high blood pressure affects your heart -- and what you can do about it.
• 
• Heart Attacker #4: Chronic Inflammation
• Chronic inflammation can increase your chance of heart disease -- and it's more common than you may think.
• 
• Heart Attacker #6: Oxidative Stress
• Oxidative stress is a threat to your heart. Find out how to prevent it.
• 
• Beyond the Big 6 Heart Threats: Emerging Markers
• Researchers have uncovered four new major heart threats.
• 

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Wondering why my niece, Charlotte, was returning to college to get a master's in philosophy, I asked, "What can you do with a degree like that?" "Well," she explained, "it will qualify me to deal with questions like, 'What is existence?' 'What is the essence of things?' and 'Do you want fries with that?' "

-- Mel Loftus, Holmen, Wis.