Managing Metabolic Syndrome

Combining East and West

Are you gaining belly fat around the middle?

Are you fatigued after you eat?

Do you have a family history of diabetes or elevated glucose levels?

Do you have “borderline” high blood pressure?

Are your cholesterol levels elevated?

Do you have liver disease?

If you recognize some of these issues as your own, you are most likely suffering from metabolic syndrome. Metabolic syndrome is a group of conditions that puts a person at risk for cardiovascular disease and type II diabetes. Metabolic syndrome affects one in five people in the United States, and it occurs more frequently with age. Some studies suggest the prevalence in the USA to be up to 25% of the population. Metabolic syndrome is also known as metabolic syndrome X, syndrome X, or insulin resistance syndrome.

How can Metabolic Syndrome be Managed?

Chinese traditional approaches in combination with new evidence-based knowledge of metabolic syndrome can help you to lose weight, have more energy and decrease your developing type II diabetes and heart disease. You, the person with metabolic syndrome, can change most of the factors that contribute to metabolic syndrome. You can take specific actions and can make the changes for yourself. However, you need to overcome internalized obstacles to make those changes happen.

Many Western practitioners, faced with shortage of time with patients and lack of staff support, will often prescribe medications such as Metformin to a pre-diabetic person or a diabetic person with a poor diet, rather than promoting lifestyle changes. However, lifestyle and dietary changes can often preclude the use of medications and help reverse the development of disease. These lifestyle and dietary changes can be adjusted to an individual according to your Chinese traditional diagnosis and Western evaluations and tests. They can be as simple or as complex as needed or desired by an individual.

The components of an East/West individualized program may include some or all the following:

• nutritional counseling
• dietary recommendations
• herbal formulas
• acupuncture
• massage or other body work
• exercise plans
• support systems

Chicken Soup Chinese Medicine offers a program that takes advantage of the best of both worlds. At Chicken Soup Chinese Medicine, we provide the resources and support to both you, the client, and to your medical doctor or practitioner to increase your chances that you will be successful in making positive changes in your life.

Nutritional Approaches

Our Managing Metabolic Syndrome Program incorporates knowledge of Chinese traditional medicine and western/biomedical nutritional approaches. One of the big gifts that Chinese traditional medicine offers people with metabolic syndrome is the insight into your individual constitution, as well as any related disease process. Not everyone will do as well on any particular diet, and the reason is that each individual’s constitution demands certain requirements in their diet.