Metabolic Syndrome Pandemic

Abstract

The metabolic syndrome is a multiplex risk factor that consists of several risk correlates of metabolic origin. In addition, to dyslipidemia, hypertension, and hyperglycermia, the syndrome carries a prothrombotic state and a proinflammatory state. Persons with the metabolic syndrome are at essentially twice the risk for cardiovascular disease compared with those without the syndrome. It further raises the risk for type 2 diabetes by about 5-fold. Although some investigators favor keeping risk factors separate for purposes of clinical management, others believe that identifying individuals with an aggregation of risk factors provides additional useful information to guide clinical management. In particular it focuses attention on obesity and sedentary life habits that are the root of the syndrome. This review addresses the prevalence of this clustering phenomenon throughout the world. Such seems appropriate because of the increasing prevalence of obesity in almost all countries. The available evidence indicates that in most countries between 20% and 30% of the adult population can be characterized as having the metabolic syndrome. In some populations or segments of the population, the prevalence is even higher. On the other hand, in parts of developing world in which young adults predominate, the prevalence is lower; but with increasing affluence and aging of the population, the prevalence undoubtedly with rise.

High prevalence of metabolic syndrome in an elderly Croatian population – a multicentre study

“…Populations in which young adults predominate have lower MetS prevalence, but MetS prevalence increases with increasing affluence and ageing of the population (16) . Our study was conducted among a relatively healthy, free-living elderly Croatian population with age more than 70 years.…”

Proposed cut‐off values of the waist circumference for metabolic syndrome based on visceral fat volume in a Japanese population

“…Persons with metabolic syndrome (MetS) are twice as likely to develop cardiovascular disease and five times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes mellitus than persons without MetS1. The features of MetS include: (i) elevation of triglycerides (TG); (ii) reduction of high‐density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL‐C); (iii) elevation of blood pressure (BP); (iv) elevation of fasting glucose (FG); and (v) visceral obesity.…”

Seasonal variation in metabolic syndrome prevalence

“…[1][2][3] This syndrome has also been the focus of much attention in the scientific literature, because major organizations such as the National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) have each released separate diagnostic criteria. 4,5 Such organizations have proposed that metabolic syndrome can be clinically diagnosed using a clustering of simple measurements, including waist circumference (WC), triglyceride (TG), high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol (HDL-C), blood pressure (BP) and fasting glucose.…”