You can still have metabolic syndrome even if your thin
Weight gain occurs after metabolic syndrome, but when you look at the normal weight population, approximately 40 percent of those people also have metabolic syndrome—meaning they have metabolic dysfunction, insulin resistance, and high insulin levels. But for whatever reason, they’re just not obese. In some of them, their fat cells are insulin resistant, too, so energy doesn’t accumulate in the subcutaneous fat tissue. Instead they put it in other organs that shouldn’t have fat, such as muscle and the liver. This has spawned a new medical term called TOFI, or thin on the outside, fat on the inside.
References
- Lustig, Robert. (2021). Metabolical Chapter 2. “Modern Medicine” Treats Symptoms, Not Disease (p. 41). New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.