Metabolic Syndrome
Wednesday, February 9th, 2005 at 11:43 am
Germaine Savoy has known for years she needed to lose weight and figured she was in for another lecture when she went to see her doctor last week. She wasn't expecting to hear that she had some strange, ominous-sounding syndrome.
"I've always been petrified about hearing I had diabetes," said Savoy, 50, a civilian employee at Fort Detrick in Frederick who lives on Capitol Hill. "But I never thought about this. I never heard of this."
Savoy has joined the growing number of Americans who are being told they have "metabolic syndrome," a diagnosis that has become alarmingly common, primarily because of the obesity epidemic. A syndrome is a collection of symptoms that make someone prone to disease.
The metabolic syndrome, probably caused by a fundamental malfunctioning of the body's system for storing and burning energy, is defined by having a cluster of risk factors such as elevated blood pressure, poor blood sugar control, high levels of fats in the blood called triglycerides and low HDL, or "good" cholesterol. Individually, each factor may not be highly dangerous, but together they appear to sharply boost the danger of major health problems, notably heart disease, diabetes and, possibly, certain types of cancer.
At least 64 million Americans — nearly a third of adults age 20 and older — probably meet the federal government's criteria for the syndrome, and the rate approaches 50 percent among the elderly. Mexican Americans and African American women appear to be especially prone. It also turns up in people who are not obese but have recently put on a lot of weight around their middles, and in an increasing number of overweight children.
Continue reading at the Washington Post
So a third of people in the United States are obese - but we now have a new "syndrome" that we can diagnose them with… How does this help anyone. Is a patient, upon hearing that they have "metabolic syndrome," more likely to eat correctly and exercise compared to when we just told them that they were "obese?" Not likely - I believe it will have the opposite effect, as patients will feel that they have a "syndrome," therefore they have an excuse to be obese, as there is "nothing that they can do about it." So what really is the purpose of naming this new "syndrome" that a third of US citizens can be diagnosed with?
Email to Friend
Print
Permalink
Filed under: 
I think naming it “Syndrome” makes it sound more serious and threatening than the term “obese”, so people may tend to think it as a disease or serious ailment, and thus look after themselves better? Cheers.