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The cornerstone of treatment for metabolic syndrome is simple: improving your diet, restricting calories, losing weight and/or maintaining a normal body weight, and increasing levels of physical activity. One major study found that for every pound lost, the risk of metabolic syndrome decreased by 22 percent.

Don't try a crash diet, however; they don't work. Instead, the best approach is to reduce your total calories—by up to 1,000 calories a day, depending on your weight. You can cut out 500 calories a day, for instance, simply by skipping that Frappucchino and cutting out one large soda.

Cutting calories isn't enough, however, if you're after long-term weight loss. You also have to change the way you eat and view food. That means setting goals for weight loss, planning meals, reading labels, reducing portion sizes and avoiding eating binges. Measuring and cutting calories can be complicated, so you might try even simpler techniques like setting aside 10 percent of your meal before you even start. You'll eat less and not even notice the difference.

And you don't have to lose a lot of weight; aim for five to 10 percent of your weight over six to 12 months. If you weigh 200 pounds, that's a loss of 10 to 20 pounds, enough to change the way you look and feel and improve many of those metabolic markers.

Even if you're not aiming to lose weight, you should change your diet. Studies find a diet high in saturated fat, simple sugars and cholesterol contributes to metabolic syndrome. Reducing the amount you eat while increasing the amount of fruits, vegetables and whole grains in your diet is best.

Now on to the second part of the equation: exercise. When you exercise, your cells become more receptive to insulin. Even if you don't lose weight, regular exercise (a 30-minute walk a day) can make a huge difference in improving most, if not all, of the risk factors for metabolic syndrome.

Although lifestyle changes are the simplest and most effective way to improve all five risk factors associated with metabolic syndrome, in some instances your health care provider may also prescribe medication to treat the individual components of metabolic syndrome.

To improve insulin resistance, for instance, your health care professional may prescribe medications such as metformin (Glucophage), pioglitazone (Actos) and rosiglitazone (Avandia). In fact, studies find that metformin can actually help prevent diabetes in people with prediabetes.

If you have both high blood pressure and metabolic syndrome, make sure your health care professional knows you have the syndrome. Large doses of some commonly prescribed blood pressure drugs, such as diuretics and beta-blockers, can make insulin resistance worse. ACE inhibitors such as enalapril (Vasotec) and benazepril (Lotensin) and angiotensin receptor blockers like losartan (Cozaar) seem to work best in patients with diabetes.

While there aren't many drugs that can raise HDL cholesterol, your health care professional may still prescribe a statin, particularly if your LDL cholesterol levels are high; statins can improve HDL cholesterol somewhat. Additionally, if your 10-year risk of heart disease is high, you may want to talk to your health care professional about aspirin therapy. You can learn more about your risk of heart disease at www.nhlbi.nih.gov/guidelines/cholesterol/risk_tbl.htm.

Drugs commonly prescribed to reduce triglycerides include gemfibrozil (Lopid) and clofibrate (Abitrate).

Generally, your primary care physician—family practitioner or internist—will treat the components of metabolic syndrome, although you may also need to see an endocrinologist, a doctor who specializes in diseases like diabetes that are related to hormones.