A "Western" diet heavy in meat, fried foods, and refined grains
puts people at higher risk of developing metabolic syndrome, the
collection of risk factors for heart problems, stroke, and type
2 diabetes, according to a study reported in the journal
Circulation. The findings confirmed previous research with one
interesting twist: Drinking diet soda will not change the
health-risk equation (surprisingly, it ups the risk, too),
although consuming more dairy might protect you. A whopping 60.5
percent of the study participants either had metabolic syndrome
at the start of the study or developed it during nine years of
follow-up. "This is a red-alert wake-up call," says Dr. Suzanne
Steinbaum, at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, who was not
involved with the study. "I love that they call this a Western
diet," she says. "It's the perspective that we, as Americans,
cannot eat any worse." A person is thought to have metabolic
syndrome if he or she has three or more of the following
cardiovascular risk factors: la