Can we just call this the "real" metabolic syndrome caused by obesity.  Since the lardasses got themselves so fat in the first place, the kind of shock that the training the show contestants go through would have some deleterious effects on their metabolism.  There should be a companion study done that compares these contestants against fatballs that actually maintain a healthy lifestyle change for losing weight.  Then you could draw specious conclusions on 16 whopping data points.