Reversing the Metabolic Syndrome

What is the Metabolic Syndrome?The metabolic syndrome is a collection of high-risk symptoms including elevated lipids (cholesterol and triglycerides), hypertension and a proinflammatory state. Having the metabolic syndrome places the individual at high-risk for heart disease and diabetes. Men are more prone to developing the metabolic syndrome due to their natural tendency to deposit excess fat as visceral adipose tissue (VAT) also called intra-abdominal fat. Postmenopausal women are also at risk due to lower estrogen to androgen ratios. The shift from a pear shape to an apple shape displays this hormonal shift. In fact, the apple shape is primarily caused by VAT as opposed to subcutaneous (fat under the skin) fat.The American Heart Association has established standards for diagnosing the metabolic syndrome. The patient must have 3 of the following conditions:1. Waist circumference greater than 40 inches for men, 35 inches for women.2. Triglycerides greater than 150 mg/dL.3. HDL Cholesterol less than 40 mg/d for men, less than 50 mg/dl for women.4. Blood pressure greater than 130/85 mm Hg.5. Fasting glucose greater than 100 mg/dL.What causes the Metabolic Syndrome?The metabolic syndrome appears to be caused by insulin resistance and the associated accumulation of VAT. VAT releases inflammatory adipocytokines, which contribute to the proinflammatory state. Fatty liver is also strongly correlated with VAT [1], and is a likely cause of the elevated lipids.VAT accumulation correlates with fasting insulin, total whole-body glucose disposal, glucose oxidation and nonoxidative whole-body glucose disposal [2]. Also, factors associated with insulin resistance are also correlated with VAT accumulation, including triglycerides [3], hepatic lipase [4] and HL/LPL ratio [5]. Likewise, factors inversely associated with insulin resistance are also inversely correlated with VAT accumulation including HDL [3]. How can the Metabolic Syndrome be reversed?Improving insulin sensitivity is of primary importance. This requires an improved diet along with exercise. 1. Lose weight. Weight loss greatly improves insulin sensitivity.2. Upgrade your fat intake. Saturated fat significantly worsens insulin resistance, while monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids (especially omega-3) improve it [6].3. Exercise. Even something as simple as daily walking reduces visceral adipose tissue areas and improves insulin resistance [7].4. Minimize stress. Cortisol appears to be involved in VAT accumulation and insulin resistance.5. Eat more fiber. Fiber improves insulin sensitivity and is associated with lower amounts of VAT [9]. Pectin appears to be an especially effective fiber for reducing VAT [10].6. Take supplements. Pantethine [11], taurine [12], calcium [13] and tea [14] all improve insulin sensitivity and reduce VAT.David SpeltsFat Loss Nutrition[1] Kelley DE, McKolanis TM, Hegazi RA, Kuller LH, Kalhan SC. : Fatty liver in type 2 diabetes mellitus: relation to regional adiposity, fatty acids, and insulin resistance. Am J Physiol Endocrinol Metab. 10/2003.[2] Laakso, Markku: Insulin resistance, body fat distribution, and sex hormones in men. Diabetes, 2/1/1994. [3] R. B. Terry, P. D. Wood, W. L. Haskell, M. L. Stefanick and R. M. Krauss: Regional adiposity patterns in relation to lipids, lipoprotein cholesterol, and lipoprotein subfraction mass in men. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 1989. [4] C. E. Tan; L. Forster; M. J. Caslake; D. Bedford; T. D. G. Watson; M. McConnell; C. J. Packard; J. Shepherd: Relations Between Plasma Lipids and Postheparin Plasma Lipases and VLDL and LDL Subfraction Patterns in Normolipemic Men and Women. Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis, and Vascular Biology, 1995. [5] Despres JP, Couillard C, Gagnon J, Bergeron J, Leon AS, Rao DC, Skinner JS, Wilmore JH, Bouchard C: Race, visceral adipose tissue, plasma lipids, and lipoprotein lipase activity in men and women: the Health, Risk Factors, Exercise Training, and Genetics (HERITAGE) family study. Arterioscler Thromb Vasc Biol, 2000. [6] Riccardi G, Giacco R, Rivellese AA.: Dietary fat, insulin sensitivity and the metabolic syndrome. Clin Nutr. 8/2004.[7] Miyatake N, Nishikawa H, Morishita A, Kunitomi M, Wada J, Suzuki H, Takahashi K, Makino H, Kira S, Fujii M.: Daily walking reduces visceral adipose tissue areas and improves insulin resistance in Japanese obese subjects. Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 11/2002.[8] Gluck ME, Geliebter A, Lorence M.; Cortisol stress response is positively correlated with central obesity in obese women with binge eating disorder (BED) before and after cognitive-behavioral treatment. Ann N Y Acad Sci. 12/2004.[9] DS Ludwig et al: Dietary fiber, weight gain, and cardiovascular disease risk factors in young adults. Journal of the American Medical Association 1999. [10] Hendricks KM et al. High-fiber diet in HIV-positive men is associated with lower risk of developing fat deposition. Am J Clin Nutr 78: 790-5, 2003. [11] Osono Y, Hirose N, Nakajima K, Hata Y: The effects of pantethine on fatty liver and fat distribution. J Atheroscler Thromb, 2000. [12] Nakaya Y, Minami A, Harada N, Sakamoto S, Niwa Y, Ohnaka M: Taurine improves insulin sensitivity in the Otsuka Long-Evans Tokushima Fatty rat, a model of spontaneous type 2 diabetes. Am J Clin Nutr, Jan 2000. [13] Soares MJ, Binns C, Lester L: Higher intakes of calcium are associated with lower BMI and waist circumference in Australian adults: an examination of the 1995 National Nutrition Survey. Asia Pac J Clin Nutrition, 2004. [14] C. Wu, et al: Relationship among Habitual Tea Consumption, Percent Body Fat, and Body Fat Distribution. Obesity Research, September, 2003.

Let’s Eat Organic Food

One thing that might amazement you about organic food is the detail that it can actually be an important tool in your delicate dispute against obesity. Additionally, organic foods give a senior concentration of nutrients, especially if you select to steam your vegetables. Most crop bought from the district farmers advertise or even your grocery stock include many different chemicals that your body must method and subtract to keep these chemicals from ultimately poisoning your structure. The bulk of the processing and ridding your body of these chemicals takes place in the liver, which is a key organ in the stress hammering route. The liver is the body’s “authority house” and the prevalent burner of fat in the body. It is important to supply your liver suitably to insure that it is running as efficiently as viable. To nosh your liver properly you should to consume bounty of backbone and forestall foods that may include substance toxins, which can be found in many foods as well as alcohol. You are maybe well alert of the fact that structure helps your body’s digestive processes by flushing certain concern that you aren’t able to digest out of the body. This processed rids the body of countless toxins and misuse products every day. Fiber aids the liver by ridding it of these toxins and not allowing them to be stored as greasy deposits. If you supply your body with too much fat, additives, chemicals, and toxins then they cannot be properly disposed of. The outcome of this is that these toxins, poisons, and fats are stored in your body pending your body can actually get around to receiving rid of them. These fat deposits throughout your body can hint to a form known as ‘fatty liver’, which will significantly impair your credence passing labors. Eating healthful food that is high and grit, low in fat, and liberated of chemicals and toxins is one way to cleanse the body of this situation. Organic food is a brilliant array because it regularly meets all the above criteria. It is important to keep in opinion the food manufacturers regularly inject the foods they vend with chemicals to prolong their ’step life’ and keep them looking fresh and succulent. Farmers also inject hormones into their crops to boost the book of their crops. In other words, ingestion these types of fabricate might not be as strong as you think it is and you may be sabotaging your own power debit labors. By eating organic food exclusively you can sincerely control the number of toxins being introduced to your body, which will reduce the burden on overworked systems important to a new thinner you!

Action on the stomach.
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The action of alcohol on the stomach is extremely dangerous that it becomes unable to produce the natural digestive fluid in sufficient quantity and also fails to absorb the food which it may imperfectly digest. A condition marked by the sense of nausea emptiness, prostration and distention will always be faced by an alcoholic. This results in a loathing for food and is teased with a craving for more drink. Thus there is engendered a permanent disorder which is called dyspepsia. The disastrous forms of confirmed indigestion originate by this practice.

How the liver gets affected.
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The organic deteriorations caused by the continued use of alcohol are often of a fatal character. The organ which most frequently undergoes structural changes from alcohol, is the liver. Normally, the liver has the capacity to hold active substances in its cellular parts. In instances of poisoning by various poisonous compounds, we analyse liver as if it were the central depot of the foreign matter. It is practically the same in respect to alcohol. The liver of an alcoholic is never free from the influence of alcohol and it is too often saturated with it. The minute membranous or capsular structure of the liver gets affected, preventing proper dialysis and free secretion. The liver becomes large due to the dilatation of its vessels, the surcharge of fluid matter and the thickening of tissue. This follows contraction of membrane and shrinking of the whole organ in its cellular parts. Then the lower parts of the alcoholic becomes dropsical owing to the obstruction offered to the returning blood by the veins. The structure of the liver may be charged with fatty cells and undergo what is technically designated ‘fatty liver’.

How the Kidneys deteriorate.
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The Kidneys also suffer due to the excessive consumption of alcohol. The vessels of Kidneys lose elasticity and power of contraction. The minute structures in them go through fatty modification. Albumin from the blood easily passes through their membranes. This results in the body losing its power as if it were being run out of blood gradually.

Congestion of the lungs.
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Alcohol relaxes the vessels of the lungs easily as they are most exposed to the fluctuations of heat and cold. When subjected to the effects of a rapid variation in atmospheric temperature, they get readily congested. During severe winter seasons, the suddenly fatal congestions of lungs easily affects an alcoholic.

Alcohol weakens the heart.
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Consumption of alcohol greatly affects the heart. The quality of the membraneous structures which cover and line the heart changes and are thickened, become cartilaginous or calcareous. Then the valves lose their suppleness and what is termed valvular disorder becomes permanent. The structure of the the coats of the great blood-vessel leading from the heart share in the same changes of structure so that the vessel loses its elasticity and its power to feed the heart by the recoil from its distention, after the heart, by its stroke, has filled it with blood.

Again, the muscular structure of the heart fails owing to degenerative changes in its tissue. The elements of the muscular fibre are replaced by fatty cells or, if not so replaced, are themselves transferred into a modified muscular texture in which the power of contraction is greatly reduced.

Those who suffer from these organic deteriorations of the central and governing organ of the circulation of the blood learn the fact so insidiously, it hardly breaks upon them until the mischief is far advanced. They are conscious of a central failure of power from slight causes such as overexertion, trouble, broken rest or too long abstinence from food. They feel what they call a ’sinking’ but they know that wine or some other stimulant will at once relieve the sensation. Thus they seek to relieve it until at last they discover that the remedy fails. The jaded, overworked, faithful heart will bear no more. it has run its course and the governor of the blood-streams broken. The current either overflows into the tissues gradually damming up the courses or under some slight shock or excess of motion ceases wholly at the centre.

Forest Schellenberg is the Editor and Publisher of Article Click. For more FREE articles for your ezine and websites visit - www.articleclick.com

Choline is an essential nutrient but not, strictly speaking, a vitamin although it is often mistakenly thought of as a member of the B complex, with which it has numerous functions in common. Choline should be found in abundance in a normally healthy diet, but deficiencies have been linked with cardiovascular and liver disease, as well as impaired cognitive function.

Until as recently as 1998 it was believed that the body could manufacture an adequate supply of choline from the closely associated nutrients, vitamin B12 and folic acid. It is now accepted, however, that although the body can indeed synthesise choline in limited quantities, an adequate supply from the daily diet is also required for the avoidance of a number of potentially serious deficiency conditions and diseases.

Most choline in the body is contained in the phospholipids, a particular type of fat molecule of which the most common, phosphatidylcholine, more commonly known as lecithin, is also an important dietary source of choline.

Choline is known to be crucial for the proper functioning of the brain’s neurotransmitters, and in the form of lecithin is an important element in the composition of cell membranes and effective biochemical communication between cells.

Lecithin, moreover, is vital for the liver’s ability to break down fat and cholesterol into the “Very Low Density Lipoproteins” (VLDLs) which are carried around the body in the bloodstream. Any deficiency of choline or lecithin may therefore result in the liver becoming unable to metabolise dietary fat and cholesterol in this way, and the resulting accumulation may lead to the condition known as “fatty liver” and ultimately perhaps to serious liver disease. Some research even suggests that the changes in the liver brought about by choline deficiency may lead to an increased risk of liver cancer, although not all authorities regard this research as conclusive.

VLDLs are also necessary for the production of the High Density Lipoproteins (HDLs), the so-called “good cholesterol”, which is generally recognised as a significant protector against cardiovascular disease. There is also some evidence, although the research is not yet universally accepted, that choline may assist in the breaking down of homocysteine, a naturally occurring protein within the body, which is strongly associated with an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

These protective effects may appear somewhat paradoxical, because the milk, eggs and liver which are the richest food sources of choline have been condemned in the past for the amounts of supposedly dangerous cholesterol they introduce to the body.

A small (3oz) serving of beef liver, for example, will provide more than 350 mg of choline, and a single large egg perhaps 125 mg or more. So strict vegetarians who adopt a low fat, and supposedly low cholesterol diet which excludes these choline rich foods, may paradoxically be placing their cardiovascular health at risk.

Fortunately, however, this is a relatively simple problem to resolve, as supplies of lecithin manufactured from soy beans are readily available from health food stores. A single teaspoon (3.5g) of the granular supplement may provide around 130 mg of choline and is reasonably palatable when sprinkled in suitable drinks or on cereals. Peanuts and wheatgerm are also useful vegetarian sources.

To put the quantities mentioned above in some kind of context: the US Food and Nutrition Board (FNB) has recommended an “Adequate Intake” amount for choline of 550 mg a day, or a mere 4-5 teaspoons of granular lecithin and it has been estimated that most adults are able to obtain between 700 and 1,000 mg a day from a normally healthy diet. Caution should be exercised, however, in the treatment of the FNB recommendation which appears to have been set at the lowest level necessary to avoid liver damage. And it may be noted also that the 700 mg figure for the lower end of the range of normal intake seems perilously close to the 550 mg a day regarded as adequate by the FNB.

But the avoidance of serious damage to a vital organ is, to put it mildly, the very minimum one would reasonably expect of a “healthy” diet, and a very long way indeed from the optimum health which nutritional practitioners insist should be the aim.

For example, although conventional medicine remains reluctant to accept the link as proven, there is some evidence that choline in amounts of up to 1g can improve cognitive function and particularly memory. Choline is known to act as a stimulant to the production of essential neurotransmitting chemicals, and there is also some evidence that high intakes during pregnancy may encourage optimal development of the foetal brain and nervous system.

Although the possible reasons are not fully understood, there is also good evidence that high doses of choline may significantly improve athletic performance in long distance endurance events such as marathon or triathlon.

So given that the FNB has established 3.5 grams (ie 3,500 mg) a day as the upper safe limit for choline intake before any potential (and minor) side-effects might be encountered, and that choline cannot be stored in the body, there seems no reason not to aim for an intake well in excess of the recommended minimum or “adequate” amount.

Granular soy lecithin can provide a simple and convenient means of supplementation with such doses.

Diet and Exercise have a lot to do with stress – if you have a poor diet and don’t get any exercise then your body will almost shut down and you will feel low and have less energy. Exercise is a great way to ensure that your body is fit and healthy, but diet has a lot to do with it as well. Dieting is a common thing these days and there are thousands of diets on the market – low carb diets such as the Atkins diet, high fibre diets such as the Cabbage Soup Diet and many, many more. You should try and steer clear of these fad diets if you want to see lasting results. Your body will never be healthy if you cut out an entire food group. You should stick to eating a healthy balanced diet at all times and you’ll see the difference. High fat diets are extremely bad for the body – of course to some of you this is obvious but a lot of people don’t realise that they are eating a high fat diet and some people don’t realise the risks involved; heart disease, fatty liver, stroke and other dangerous diseases are all linked to fatty diets and an unhealthy lifestyle. To ensure your success in life and your diet and exercise regime you must ensure you are getting enough exercise, drinking plenty of water and eating a consistently healthy balanced diet. This is easier than you would think – as long as you take a note of what you’re eating and choose wisely this can be done simply and easily. You can enjoy chocolate as well – don’t assume that a balanced healthy diet means no fat. Fat is an important part of a balanced diet and you are allows chocolate – it’s just common sense – everything in moderation is fine. One glass of wine not two, a couple of squares of chocolate, not the whole bar! It’s easy and simple and can lead to longer life and a great sense of well being.