Curious Cook: TOFI, FOFI and metabolic syndrome

The growth in fast food diets since the 1960s is strongly correlated with metabolic syndrome. —FOODIE FACTOR/Pexels

Much of the world is suffering from a slow-burning pandemic called Metabolic Syndrome, which is resulting in millions of cases of Non-Communicable Diseases (NCD). A NCD is defined as a disease which cannot be spread via any viral and/or bacterial vector from a sufferer. An example NCD is diabetes which afflicted 11.3% (37.3 million) of the entire population of the USA in 2019, with a staggering 38% (96 million) of the population additionally judged to be pre-diabetic.

The statistics have not improved since then, with cases expected to rise to around 55 million confirmed diabetics in the USA by 2030. Some 75% of the total healthcare costs in the USA are now related to metabolic syndrome in some manner. These sobering statistics are dwarfed by China, which has more than 141 million diabetics currently (10% of population), with an estimated 365 million people (26% of the population) who are pre-diabetic.