Following Diet is Crucial For People With Metabolic Syndrome

For those suffering from metabolic syndrome, adhering to diet is a good remedy to lower the risk of developing coronary artery risk disease, type2 diabetes and stroke, according to a new finding.

Metabolic syndrome is a silent and life-threatening condition. It belongs to a group of other chronic conditions such as insulin resistance, high cholesterol, obesity and high blood pressure. For people with this condition, following a diet is really challenging. A new Nordic SYSDIET study conducted by researchers at the University of Eastern Finland claims that it is important for people in this risk group to follow dietary recommendations.

This was the first study that focused on the adherence of diet among people with metabolic syndrome or those having increased risk of metabolic syndrome.

For this study the researchers focused on 175 people who displayed at least two criteria for metabolic syndrome. Either high blood pressure, high fasting plasma glucose concentration or abnormal blood lipid profile or they were either little overweight. On four days, their intake of nutrients was monitored using food diaries.

They noticed that nearly 80 percent of the participants' diet was high in saturated fat. And in one-third of the participants, there was sufficient intake of soft, polyunsaturated fat. The intake of dietary fiber was too low in 75 percent of subjects and 65 percent of them had high levels of salt. Twenty percent of them had insufficient intake of vitamin D and one third of men and one fourth of women had taken excess of alcohol.

"The low adherence to nutrition recommendations is likely to further increase the risk of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes, and the results indicate that the Nordic countries should increasingly invest in dietary assessments and counselling aimed at persons exhibiting features of metabolic syndrome," the researchers explain.

The study was documented in the Food & Nutrition Research.