Cardiovascular consequences of metabolic syndrome-unforeseen circumstances: Dr. Sushil

STATE TIMES NEWS

JAMMU: With pandemic of metabolic syndrome looming over urban as well as rural population Head Department of Cardiology GMCH Jammu Dr Sushil Sharma held a day long cardiac Awareness cum health Check up camp at Shiv Mandir, Muthi village Block Bhalwal, here with main motto of educating people about the ill consequences of metabolic syndrome and remedies there off so as to adopt a cardiac friendly diet and lifestyle and prevent cardiac complications at early stage.
While interacting with the people, Dr Sushil stated that metabolic syndrome is defined as the concurrence of obesity-associated cardiovascular risk factors including abdominal obesity, impaired glucose tolerance, hypertriglyceridemia, decreased HDL cholesterol, and/or hypertension.
“Earlier conceptualizations of the MetS focused on insulin resistance as a core feature, and it is clearly coincident with the above list of features. Each component of the syndrome is an independent risk factor for cardiovascular disease and the combination of these risk factors elevates rates and severity of cardiovascular disease, related to a spectrum of cardiovascular conditions including microvascular dysfunction, coronary atherosclerosis and calcification, cardiac dysfunction, myocardial infarction, and heart failure. While advances in understanding the etiology and consequences of this complex disorder have been made, the underlying pathophysiologic mechanisms remain incompletely understood, and it is unclear how these concurrent risk factors conspire to produce the variety of obesity-associated adverse cardiovascular diseases,” Dr Sushil said.
He elaborated that the predominant underlying risk factors of the metabolic syndrome appear to be abdominal obesity and insulin resistance; other associated conditions can be physical inactivity, aging and hormonal imbalance. An atherogenic diet (e.g., a diet rich in saturated fat and cholesterol) although not listed specifically as an underlying risk factor for the condition can enhance risk in people with the syndrome for developing cardiovascular disease.
One theory states that insulin resistance is the essential cause of metabolic syndrome. Multiple metabolic pathways have also been proposed to link insulin resistance and compensatory hyperinsulinemia to the other metabolic risk factors.
Finally, considerable individual and ethnic variation exists in the clinical pattern of metabolic risk factors in obese/insulin-resistant subjects. It is likely that the expression of each metabolic risk factor falls partially under its own genetic control which influences the response to different environmental exposures, Dr Sushil said.
Dr Sharma in his concluding remarks told that despite significant advances made to date, the physiological and molecular mechanisms of metabolic, functional and vascular disease in obesity/MetS remain poorly understood. The most obvious hurdle is the complicated, inter-dependent multi-factorial nature of the syndrome itself, making it difficult to disentangle relevant factors or specific combinations of factors. There is a clear need for ongoing exploration of issues, to better understand and better treat obesity and MetS-associated cardiovascular disease, in order to better address the considerable public health implications of these conditions. Further he explained that there may be value in diagnosing the metabolic syndrome, not just for specific treatment of insulin resistance but to identify persons (even with only modestly elevated risk factors) with an extremely adverse metabolic state that warrants aggressive intervention for specific traits, he said.
Prominent members of the area Brig. Dr Vijay Sagar Dhiman, Pandit Pyare Mohan Shastri, Balwant Kataria, Raman Chalotra and Dharam Chand Shastri appreciated the efforts of Dr Sushil and his team for conducting cardiac awareness cum health checkup camp in their locality .
Others who were part of this Camp includes Dr Dhaneshwer Kapoor and Dr Devinder Singh. Paramedics and volunteers includes Paramveer Singh, Vinay Kumar, Jatin Bhasin, Amish Jamwal, Rahul Vaid, Sunil Pandit, Mukesh Kumar, Gourav Sharma, Amnish Dutta, Ranjeet Singh and Rajkumar.