The concept of metabolic syndrome has emerged across disciplines in the biomedical and health sciences as a loosely defined set of statistical risk factors that purport to predict heart disease, diabetes, and other poor health outcomes (Hatch 2016). While there remains little consensus over how to define metabolic syndrome, to what extent the syndrome is a predictive factor of heart and digestive-related diseases, and what factors cause metabolic syndrome, there have been recent attempts to create standardized definitions. Most recently, the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) defined metabolic syndrome using measurements of blood pressure, fasting blood sugar, LDL and HDL cholesterol, and abdominal circumference. Anthony Ryan Hatch's Blood Sugar: Racial Pharmacology and Food Justice in Black America explores the consequences of creating standardized definitions of metabolic syndrome by questioning how research on this syndrome shapes knowledge of racial health disparities, and to what extent it benefits people on ground level...
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