School children and metabolic syndrome

Children with metabolic syndrome may perform worse in school.

Researchers compared close to 50 children with the disorder to a group of children without it.

They found that those children with metabolic syndrome had significantly lower math and spelling scores, and had changes in their brain indicative of learning problems.

Metabolic syndrome is when a child has three of five health conditions; obesity, low levels of good cholesterol, high triglycerides or blood pressure, or pre-diabetes.