New article coming this weekend on the intersection between glycine and metabolic syndrome.

Did you know that over 1/3 of Americans have metabolic syndrome? That’s 100 million people! This is a multi factorial disease that is diagnosed by observing a constellation of symptoms: high blood pressure, fatty liver, visceral adiposity (obesity), elevated cholesterol, and insulin resistance. Insulin resistance and obesity are the most sensitive of the diagnostic criteria.

Most doctors don’t check for insulin levels but only blood sugar levels and so if the FBG is below 100 and the A1C is below 5.7, the developing metabolic syndrome can be missed. But behind the scenes insulin is rising as the pancreas is pumping more out to keep the blood sugar levels under control. It often isn’t noticed until it’s too late and the patient is in pre-diabetes or type-2 diabetes.

This is a shame because those with metabolic syndrome are very likely to advance to type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The good news is that it is completely reversible when caught early enough through diet, lifestyle, and nutritional intervention- but it must be observed and diagnosed for this to occur, and it is often missed.

Another feature of metabolic syndrome that could be easily tested and help with early diagnosis, but rarely is, is blood glycine levels. There is an inverse relationship between glycine levels and insulin resistance. The lower the glycine levels the worse the insulin levels. The reasons for this are fascinating and will be covered in my next article coming soon!