Only 1 in 8 Americans Are Metabolically Healthy - Article Health

What does or does not count as “healthy” can be difficult to define, but there are certain numbers doctors generally agree on when it comes to a person’s health. Blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides (a type of fat found in blood), blood sugar, and waist circumference are all often used to measure what’s called “metabolic health.”

Metabolic health, as defined by the National Cholesterol Education Program’s Adult Treatment Panel III, is the absence of metabolic syndrome. A person has metabolic syndrome when they have too high or too low levels of three of the five factors, meaning that someone who has high blood pressure, high blood sugar, and high triglycerides would be considered unhealthy, metabolically speaking. The three risk factors combined put a person at much greater risk for diseases like type 2 diabetes, stroke, and heart disease, according to the Mayo Clinic.

And a huge percentage of Americans are lacking on metabolic health, according to a new study published in the journal Metabolic Syndrome and Related Disorders. In fact, only about 12% of adults in the U.S. have perfect levels of all five risk factors without having to take medication, the study found.

In order to have perfect metabolic health, according to this study, you need a waist circumference below 102 cm (40 inches) for men and below 88 cm (34.6 inches) for women, blood sugar below 100 mg/dL, blood pressure below 120/80, triglycerides below 150 mg/dL, and high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (also known as “good” cholesterol) greater than or equal to 40 mg/dL for men and 50 mg/dL for women.

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