The objective is to investigate the importance of perceived health risk for consumers’ preferences to purchase functional food without and with genetically modified technology. An interview-assisted questionnaire on attitudes towards the metabolic syndrome, potential agro-food technologies and genetics in nutrition was applied within a Polish representative sample of 1005 adults. There was a tendency to consider central obesity as medium-risk condition (34.5%), high blood pressure as high and very high-risk condition (42.4%), high stress level as both medium- (34.0%) and high and very high-risk conditions (38.1%). Both high cholesterol and high blood sugar were considered as low- (34.2% and 39.5%, relatively) and high- and very high-risk conditions (36.7% and 34.2%, relatively). The functional food products were preferred by higher amount of respondents in comparison with the same functional products including genetic modifications. The perceived health risks related to metabolic syndrome correlated with intentions to eat only two products representing functional food produced with and without using GM technology – poultry and butter.