Western Diet High in Processed Foods & Meats Triggers Metabolic Syndrome

We’ve learned about this before, but yet another new study now reveals the connection between eating a Western diet — high in processed foods (think carbs and sugars) and meats — and developing metabolic syndrome.

Thanks to foodproductiondaily.com for tipping me off to this new research, which involved scientists from the University of Minnesota and the University of North Carolina following 9,514 subjects for nine years.

During that time, 3,782 cases of MetS experienced an increase in metabolic syndrome.

As head researcher Pamela Lutsey and her co-workers wrote in Circulation, "Consumption of a Western dietary pattern was adversely associated with incident
MetS."

For those of you in the dark, metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a condition that generally involves the following: obesity in the mid-section, hypertension, and disturbed glucose and insulin metabolism. This scary syndrome has been linked to increased risks of both type 2 diabetes and CVD.