‘Metabolic Syndrome’ is increasingly common and emerging as an epidemic with increasing incidence and prevalence among adults, for which adoption of healthy lifestyle modifications remain key for prevention to prevent the development of serious health problems.
Pertinently, Metabolic Syndrome is a cluster of conditions including increased blood pressure(hypertension), high blood sugar levels (insulin resistance), excess body fat around the waist(abdominal obesity), and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels (dyslipidemia/hyperlipidemia) — that occur together and thus increasing one’s risk for heart disease, stroke and Type 2 diabetes.
While adopting unhealthy routines like eating poorly, exercising less, deprived sleep or leaning more heavily on substances such as alcohol, smoking and drug abuse including taking stress — could increase the potential risks of landing into serious health problems — there are healthy ways to adopt for reducing the risk.
Maintaining a healthy weight, eating a healthy diet, exercising regularly, taking less salt in diet, getting adequate sleep, avoiding smoking and alcohol consumption; monitoring blood sugar levels and keeping that under control; besides monitoring one’s cholesterol and triglyceride levels and keeping them under control are crucial hallmarks in prevention of metabolic syndrome.
Moreover, the DASH (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension) eating plan is a healthy diet plan and adopting the same in one’s life could help people lower/prevent the high blood pressure, which is one of the important components of metabolic syndrome.
More to say, there is need to avoid unnecessary stress in our lives by following a good health routine as research has shown that the depression including stress could increase a person’s risk for developing serious health problems including heart diseases, stroke and diabetes.
(Author is a medical doctor, public speaker and columnist. Email: [email protected])
