Killing us “softly”

The silent killer of the 1970s, high blood pressure, is now replaced by Metabolic Syndrome, a cluster of three or more risk factors like abdominal obesity, high blood pressure, high triglycerides, abnormal lipids, and insulin resistance (pre-diabetes T2), which is actually a “pandemic” today, robbing us of our health and potential longevity.

“The syndrome feeds into the spread of diseases like type 2 diabetes, coronary diseases, stroke, and other disabilities. The total cost of the malady, including the cost of health care and loss of potential economic activity, is in trillions,” according to the US National Institute of Health.

Metabolic syndrome kills millions of people annually around the world by way of complications of type 2 diabetes, heart attack, stroke, and other metabolic illnesses. Metabolic Syndrome kills more people globally than all casualties from all wars in human history.

The expanding waistlines of Americans (and Filipinos) over the past several decades have been alarming, not only from the cosmetic/physical point of view but, more importantly, from their adverse impact on health and morbidity. and mortality.

The researchers from Charles E. Schmidt College of Medicine at Florida Atlantic University, in an article posted in the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology and Therapeutics, stated that “being overweight and obesity contribute to metabolic syndrome, which affects 1 in 3 adults and about 40 percent of adults aged 40 and older…that the risk factors are more than just the sum of their parts.” Obesity is indeed surpassing tobacco as the pre-eminent preventable cause of early morbidity and premature deaths in the United States and globally.

The rule of thumb is that optimizing health requires a waistline of less than 40 in men and less than 35 in women, along with a healthy lifestyle: diet (foremost!), then exercise, abstinence from tobacco and alcohol, and stress management.

The authors of the study explain “that the visceral fat component of abdominal obesity leads not only to insulin resistance but also to the release of non-esterified free fatty acids from adipose tissues or body fat…the lipids then accumulate in other sites such as the liver and muscles, further predisposing individuals to greater insulin resistance and dyslipidemia, and adipose tissue may produce various adipokines that may separately impact insulin resistance and cardiovascular disease risk factors.”

Persons with metabolic syndrome are generally without symptoms and severely underdiagnosed and untreated, but have a 10-year risk of a first heart attack, according to the Framingham Risk score of 16 to 18 percent, which puts them in a higher risk category similar to those who already had a previous heart attack.

Various clinical studies have shown that even with a normal Body Mass Index (BMI), individuals with an expanding waistline from visceral fat could still have metabolic syndrome. Those who consume soft drinks of any kind, cola or uncola, diet or regular, caffeinated or not, have a higher risk for the development of metabolic syndrome, especially children. Indeed, soft drinks are toxic to our bodies, to our DNA

As I have highlighted in the book Let’s Stop “Killing” Our Children, a healthy lifestyle and disease prevention, to be fully effective, must start in the womb, and dieting and discipline must begin in the crib to protect the children’s DNA. This pre-emptive and proactive strategy at the cellular/molecular level would exempt them from having the so-called “expected and normal diseases of aging,” like arthritis, high blood pressure, diabetes T2, heart diseases, stroke, Alzheimer’s, and even cancer. Indeed, these are preventable.

The pandemic of obesity, which began in childhood, has been increasing over the past century (1 billion worldwide today). The current generation of children (1 in 10 are obese, 1 in 5 are overweight) and adolescents (who eat more calories and unhealthy foods and who exercise less) will reach middle age with higher morbidity and mortality from metabolic and cardiovascular diseases, stroke, and cancer, worse than their parents’.

While colon cancer rates have been going down among the elderly (55 and older) since the 1980s, they are increasing among those in their 20s and 30s. This was the recent alarming finding of a US cancer registry, which reviewed nearly half a million colorectal cancers diagnosed between 1974 and 2013, published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute and in the March 1, 2017 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.

The research shows that for colon cancer, a rate increase of 2.4 percent annually was noted for those in their 20s and 1.0 percent among those in their 30s. For rectal cancers, the yearly increase was even higher, 3.2 percent. This report revealed an alarming retrogression in our battle against colorectal cancers: “that young adults’ colorectal cancer risk is now similar to that of adults born around 1890.”

The investigators pointed out that high obesity rates over the past several decades “may play a role in this generation. Obesity increases the risk for all types of cancers and cardiovascular diseases, like high blood pressure, heart attack, stroke, and diabetes. Diet and calories are major culprits.

Our lifestyle, which includes what and how much food we eat, where we exercise or not, and all our self-indulgences/abuses, contributes a lot to our state of health. Metabolic syndrome, especially obesity, and red meat and processed meat consumption all increase the risk for cancer. Neglecting regular medical/ dental check-up and recommended tests also increases our health risk.

Shedding off at least 5 pounds of our excess weight through disciplined caloric counting and walking exercise for about 20 minutes a day will reduce our risk for metabolic syndrome and cancer by more than 33 percent. This is a practical and wise strategy we can painlessly do, for free!

Philip S. Chua, MD, FACS, FPCS, a Cardiac Surgeon Emeritus based in Northwest Indiana and Las Vegas, Nevada, is an international medical lecturer/author, Health Advocate, medical missionary, newspaper columnist, and Chairman of the Filipino United Network-USA, a 501(c)3 humanitarian foundation in the United States. He is a decorated recipient of the Indiana Sagamore of the Wabash Award in 1995, presented by then Indiana Governor, US Senator, and later a presidential candidate, Evan Bayh.  Other Sagamore past awardees include President Harry S. Truman, President George HW Bush, Astronaut Gus Grissom, pugilist Muhammad Ali, distinguished educators, renowned scientists, etc. (Wikipedia). Websites: FUN8888.com, Today.SPSAtoday.com, and philipSchua.com. On Amazon.com, search for “Where is My America?”  Email: scalpelpen@gmail.com