Basic Science

Digestive diseases are amid the leading fountainhead of doctor visits, hospitalizations, and abnormality in the United States each year. These conditions span a wide spectrum of disorders that affect the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, liver, gallbladder, and pancreas, as well as obesity and other nutrition-related disorders. Some digestive diseases, such as celiac disease, can be triggered by the body’s reaction to certain foods. Digestive diseases can cause serious complications ranging from severe pain to elevated risk of cancer to liver failure. The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a crucial and mounting  public-health and clinical challenge worldwide. MetS confers a 5-fold increase in the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) and 2-fold the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (CVD) over the next 5 to 10 years. Further, patients with the MetS are at 2- to 4-fold increased risk of stroke, a 3- to 4-fold increased risk of myocardial infarction (MI), and 2-fold the risk of dying from such an event compared with those without the syndrome regardless of a previous history of cardiovascular events