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L i v e Yo u n g e r L o n g e r
Metabolic Syndrome
Dr. Portnoff says his heart disease patients
often comment that they wish they’d taken
steps to improve their health a decade
earlier. “As you age, it can be more difficult
to make changes and for your body to
respond to your efforts. It’s always preferable
to make changes before irreversible damage
occurs in your body.”
A Silent Condition
That Could Harm Your
Heart
Do You Fit the Criteria?
How do you know if you have metabolic
syndrome? The condition is defined as
meeting three or more of these criteria:
•
Abdominal obesity: A waist
circumference of 40 inches or
more for men and 35 inches or
more for women.
•
Triglyceride level of 150 mm Hg
or higher.
•
Serum HDL (good) cholesterol less
than 40 mg/dL for men and less
than 50 mg/dL for women.
•
Blood pressure of 130/85 mm Hg
or higher, or being on blood
pressure medication.
•
Fasting plasma glucose level of
100 mg/dL or higher, or being on
medication for diabetes.
The more factors you have, the higher
your risk for heart disease (including heart
attack and stroke) and diabetes.
“You do not necessarily have to be obese
to have metabolic syndrome,” says Jon
Portnoff, MD, cardiologist at the Adventist
Heart Institute in Ukiah. “The obesity
criteria applies only to your waist. That’s
because having fat inside, around your
intestines, is linked to insulin resistance,
hypertension, vascular inflammation and
impaired blood vessels, all of which leads
to coronary disease, and abdominal obesity
is at the center of it.”
How Can You Have
Metabolic Syndrome If You
Feel Normal?
Dr. Portnoff emphasizes that people who have
metabolic syndrome usually feel normal, but
he says, “They’re not normal inside.”
According to Dr. Portnoff, a blood pressure
of 130/85 mm Hg is higher than normal
(120/80 mm Hg), but high blood pressure
usually isn’t treated with medication until
a reading of 140/90 mm Hg. Similarly, a
glucose level of 100 mg/dL usually isn’t treated
with medication, even though it’s in the range
considered to be prediabetic (100 to 125 mg/
dL). Medication usually isn’t prescribed until a
reading of higher than 125 mg/dL. Therefore,
many people who have metabolic syndrome
are not flagged as having a serious health
problem requiring medical attention.
“You may not feel the effects of your
borderline cholesterol level or borderline high
blood pressure or prediabetic blood sugar
level, but that makes metabolic syndrome
even more dangerous,” says Dr. Portnoff.
“If you felt negative effects, you’d be more
likely to do something to change it.”
He adds that it’s often more difficult for
people to make changes to improve their
health when they feel OK.
If you have a condition called metabolic syndrome, you should pay attention. This condition doubles your
risk for developing cardiovascular disease and increases your risk of developing diabetes by 10 times.
Worse – you may have metabolic syndrome yet feel perfectly healthy.
Jon Portnoff, MD
Cardiologist
You may not feel the
effects of your borderline
cholesterol level or
borderline high blood
pressure or prediabetic
blood sugar level, but
that makes metabolic
syndrome even more
dangerous.
“
“
Jon Portnoff, MD
