The Autonomic Nervous System and the Metabolic Syndrome

The purpose of this study is to look at the role of the autonomic nervous system, an involuntary nervous system that controls your blood pressure, in insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome. Insulin is a substance that helps your body use the sugar in the food that you eat. Some people's tissues stop reacting in a normal way to insulin, a condition known as insulin resistance. A person with insulin resistance can have other health problems, such as obesity, high cholesterol, and high blood pressure. These problems together are called the metabolic syndrome. We think that the autonomic or involuntary nervous system controls the way your body responds to insulin. This system is changed in obese people, and we think that it may cause the insulin resistance. We plan to study this with two drugs -trimethaphan and L-NMMA. Neither of these drugs are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and they will be used for research purposes only. Fifty people will take part in this study.