Healthy Males at Risk for Metabolic Syndrome

A group of researchers found out over a two-year research period that around 15 out of 100 healthy male workers in their 30s are at risk for metabolic syndrome.

A team led by Doctor Yoo Seung-ho of the Occupational Environmental Medicine department of Kangbuk Samsung Medical Center announced on March 1 that they discovered 14.8% or 708 subjects diagnosed with metabolic syndrome in 25 months after observing 4,779 healthy male workers 30 to 39 years of age who didn’t find metabolic syndrome symptoms in medical check-ups in their workplaces in 2002.

This is the first research on the syndrome in Korea. The findings of the study were published in the Internet Annals of Epidemiology, an international academic journal issued by the American Journal of Epidemiology.

Yoo said, “Metabolic syndrome is a disease that has spread rapidly for the past two centuries worldwide. We discovered that 76.9 out of 1,000 working men in Korea aged between 30 and 39 have the disease. The figure is twice that of Japan.”

According to the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, the rate of metabolic syndrome patients in Korea shot up to 28% in 2001 from 23.8% in 1998. The survey included men in their 40s and 50s. Dr. Yoo’s study, however, learned that the disease is now spreading out to young males in their 30s.

The main cause of the disease seems to be obesity and diabetes in the youth.

Dr. Yoo said, “Many people in their 30s are obese as they enjoy eating western food, high in fat, and don’t work out due to their busy schedules. The research shows that when people turn 30, they need to lead a healthy lifestyle by watching their diet or exercising and changing their bad habits into good ones.”

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