Metabolic syndrome is a trifecta of bad lifestyle induced problems:
High serum cholesterol
Hypertension
High serum cholesterol
What's the cure? The trifecta of stuff people don't want to bother with: exercise, diet, and stress reduction. Acupuncture and herbal medicine will buy the patient time to make these lifestyle changes. . . but it won't cure the syndrome!
Acupuncture Therapy
One of the best combinations for this is syndrome is Dr. Robert Chu's WTH protocol. Why does this work for so many things? Because it balances the Liver/Wood, Earth/Middle Jiao, and Water/Kidney meridians. This protocol resets the metabolism, strengthens digestion, quells rising Liver yang, and lowers stress levels.
Left side:
St 36, St 37
Right side:
Gb 34, Gb 39
Herbal Medicine Therapy
A patient diagnosed with metabolic syndrome is likely to be pushed to take pharmaceuticals like statins, blood pressure control meds, and Metformin. Even a cursory glance at the potential side effects is eye opening. Herbal medicine, though more expensive than pharmaceuticals, gives the body a chance to detox from the chemicals. And because it is more expensive, people will be more diligent about taking them.
That said, Type 2 Diabetes can be expressed in a wide range of TCM diagnoses. This "simple" chart from a diabetes treatment seminar I attended gives you an idea of what I'm talking about.
And that's just one of the trifecta! What I'm getting at is that you need a pretty bullet proof differential diagnosis to get herbs right for diabetes.
Evergreen Herbs offers a formula called Equilibrium that is a very good broad spectrum formula for type 2 diabetes. You could add Liu Jun Zi Tang, Evergreen's Cholisma, and Herbalite to this.