About this Research Topic

Background

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) afflicts about 20-30 % of the global population, and is increasing in prevalence and incidence. MetS is linked to an unhealthy lifestyle (e.g. low physical activity and unbalanced and western-style diets), which leads to a low-grade inflammatory state and an increase in oxidative stress, due to an unbalanced ratio of pro-oxidants and antioxidant species in the human body. This low-grade inflammatory state triggers cytokine hypersecretion and eventually leads to insulin resistance which aggravates the major components of this syndrome such as hypertension, dyslipidemia, and abdominal obesity in a vicious cycle. This is a critical clinical problem because it leads the patient to have a greater risk of developing type 2 diabetes with progression to cerebrovascular and endothelial pathologies.

It is well-known that healthy dietary patterns like Mediterranean and plant-based diets have an impact on the onset, progression, and regression of MetS. Many supplements (e.g. magnesium, zinc, B vitamins) or phytochemical-derived plant extracts (e.g. opuntia, turmeric, etc) also affect the low-grade inflammatory state and higher oxidative stress present in MetS, both in animal and human studies.

The scope of this Research Topic is therefore to shed new light on nutritional therapies to treat MetS and its complications, and to help identify new dietary protocols, supplements, and/or functional foods that are impactful against this syndrome.

We are interested in Research Clinical Trials (RCTs), study protocol, dietary interventional studies, meta-analyses, systematic reviews, narrative reviews, cellular studies, and observational studies about MetS and its components, focusing on inflammatory and oxidative stress both as a result of and MetS and its role in aggravating MetS. In particular, we are interested on the effect of the ketogenic diet, Mediterranean diet (MD), DASH diet, plant-based diets, supplementation of magnesium, zinc, Poly-unsaturated fatty acid (PUFA) or phytochemicals (e.g. polyphenols, anthocyanins, curcuminoids etc.) derived from plant extracts or functional food like turmeric, opuntia, berries and so forth. Submitted research should help to address one or more of the following goals of this collection:

• To help identify new therapeutic options for patients affected by MetS (e.g. new dietary treatments, supplements, or natural molecules such as phytochemicals of functional foods)
• To consolidate the role of existing dietary therapeutic options for MetS (e.g. Mediterranean diet, Very Low-Calorie Ketogenic Diet, DASH diet)
• To consolidate the effectiveness of supplement or functional foods studies in MetS such as magnesium, zinc, vitamin D, thiamine, opuntia, PUFA, capsaicin, berries, turmeric, extra virgin olive oil, and so forth.
• To collate together review and meta-analysis to evaluate the effectiveness of the above-mentioned treatments.

Keywords: metabolic syndrome, MetS, Diet, Supplement, clinical intervention studies, RCT, Protocol study, Low-grade inflammation, oxidative stress, western-style diet, inflammation, functional food, phytochemicals, Very Low-Calorie Ketogenic Diet, Mediterranean diet

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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