For metabolic disorder, the numbers have also nearly doubled since 2009-2010.

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Pharming, a Dutch biotechnology firm, recently began clinical trials for alpha-glucosidase, a product designed to treat Pompe's disease, a metabolic disorder causing fatal degeneration of muscle.

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Most of those causes stay relatively stable from year to year, but this year two underlying causes among adults are showing a significant increase since 2009-2010: cardiovascular disease and metabolic disorder.

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But when other physicians sat down to draw up guidelines, they came up with another term for the disorder: the metabolic syndrome.

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