Preview: Opportunities to Improve Metabolic Syndrome With Your Patient

In this video, Michael Bloch, MD, provides a preview of the session “Opportunities to Improve Metabolic Syndrome With Your Patient” during our Practical Updates in Primary Care 2023 Virtual Series, including defining criteria for making the diagnosis of pre-diabetes, diabetes, and metabolic syndrome, understanding the pathophysiology of insulin resistance and metabolic syndrome, utilizing motivational interviewing skills when counseling patients about lifestyle, and incorporating the 5 “A”s of behavior change when discussing health-related behaviors.

For more meeting coverage, visit the Practical Updates in Primary Care newsroom.

For more information about PUPC 2023 Virtual Series and to register for upcoming sessions, visit https://www.practicalupdates.consultant360.com/.

Michael J. Bloch, MD, is an associate professor at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, the medical director of vascular care at the Renown Institute for Heart and Vascular Health, and the President of Blue Spruce Medical Consultants, PLLC in Reno, NV.

TRANSCRIPTION:

Dr Michael Bloch: Hello, my name's Dr. Michael Bloch, and I'm a hypertension and vascular medicine specialist from Reno, Nevada. I want to call your attention to really what I think was a very interesting session that
Karlijn Burridge and I just recorded for Practical Updates in Primary Care that focused on the metabolic syndrome. As I'm sure you're well aware, the metabolic syndrome is a constellation of conditions, hypertension, hyperglycemia, dyslipidemia, and obesity that increase the risk of stroke and cardiovascular events, as well as diabetes when they're found together. I, in this presentation, spent a fair amount of time going through the pathophysiology of the metabolic syndrome and of insulin resistance. I talked a lot about making the diagnosis. I think this is a diagnosis we don't make enough in the office. I find it a very helpful construct to make patients understand the totality of their risk that's associated with each of these risk factors when put together.

I did speak a little bit about the pharmacologic management of these individual conditions, but I think that's pretty well established. And I think the really interesting important part of this session was when Karlijn Burridge joined us to talk a little bit about motivational interviewing. Motivational interviewing is a great communication strategy, which is a real back and forth between provider and patient where the provider really listens to the patient and adjusts the recommendations based on what they're hearing in terms of patient preferences. And I think the metabolic syndrome is just a great example of where motivational interviewing skills can be used. So our learning objectives for this program were to define the criteria for making a diagnosis of pre-diabetes, for diabetes and metabolic syndrome, to understand the pathophysiology of insulin resistance in the metabolic syndrome, to utilize motivational interviewing skills when counseling patients about lifestyle, and how to incorporate the five A's of behavior change when discussing health-related behaviors.

And of course, you'll need to tune into the program to learn what those five A's are. So, I think this is a very practical review of a common topic, but I think it's a unique perspective that Karlijn brings and I really hope that you'll tune in and enjoy this presentation.