The Treatment of Metabolic Syndrome - Essay Example

The incidence of Syndrome X in the Western world has assumed alarming proportions. For instance, in the USA, data from the National Health Nutritional Survey for the years 1988 to 1994 reports that nearly 50 million Americans exhibited symptoms of Syndrome X (1). In the year 2006 Syndrome X figures may be well past 75 million.

Such a wide prevalence automatically qualifies this syndrome as a topic of research. The emphasis of the research is to develop several approaches towards treating Syndrome X. Syndrome X has been a bane of affluent societies which have afforded comfortable and luxurious lifestyles to their members with little or no physical exertions. Impact of Syndrome X and the Various Approaches Towards its TreatmentSyndrome X has been defined with limited symptoms in its theoretical construct however its physical manifestations are far and wide.

Though invariably, it is associated as a major cause of cardiovascular disease, it is also acknowledged that the syndrome may be a big contributory factor and accessory in morbidity and mortality in other conditions like non-alcoholic fatty liver, female reproductive disorders, polycystic ovary syndrome, disease, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis, gestational diabetes mellitus. It also seems to contribute to major changes in the body's eicosanoid profile, apart from having active roles in some other categories of cancer (2).

With such far-reaching adverse impacts, which also include leading to mortality and disabilities in major diseases research discussions worldwide have focused to obtain a single and comprehensive approach to the syndrome. While pharmacological approaches have primarily focused on prescriptions aimed to address individual components of the syndrome; surgical approaches have also remained limited to removing specific adverse outcomes from the patient. These approaches which focus on one or two specific components of the syndrome have proved ineffective in that ignorance of the effect of a subdued component has caused the failure of the entire approach. This has led to the necessity of various approaches which consider the entire symptom constellation of Syndrome X. This is often termed the integrated management of the syndrome.