Prevalence of vascular disease in metabolic syndrome using three proposed definitions

There are a number of definitions available for the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome (MetS). The MetS-associated increase in cardiovascular disease (CVD) risk may depend on the definition used.

To investigate which of the 3 recently proposed definitions of MetS [the National Cholesterol Education Program-Adult Treatment Panel-III (NCEP-ATP-III), the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and the American Heart Association/National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (AHA/NHLBI)] is related to excessive CVD risk and thus may be more appropriate to implement in clinical practice.

A cross-sectional analysis of a representative sample of Greek adults (n=9669).

The age-adjusted CVD prevalence was 11.4% in the whole study population, 23.3% in the NCEP-ATP-III (+) subjects, 22.6% in AHA/NHLBI (+) subjects and 18.3% in IDF (+) subjects [p<0.001 for the comparison between the whole study population and all MetS groups and p<0.0001 for the comparison between IDF (+) and either NCEP-ATP-III (+) or AHA/NHLBI (+) MetS]. However, the CVD prevalence was only 11.2% in the IDF (+) but NCEP-ATP-III (-)/AHA/NHLBI (-) MetS subjects [p<0.0001 vs. either NCEP-ATP-III (+) or AHA/NHLBI (+)], which was not different compared with the whole study population. Furthermore, subjects with NCEP ATP III (+) or AHA/NHLBI (+) MetS but not diabetes (DM) had a persistently higher prevalence of CVD compared with the whole study population. However, there was no significant difference regarding CVD prevalence between the whole study population and IDF (+)/DM (-) MetS subjects.

CVD prevalence was increased in the presence of MetS irrespective of the definition used. However, this increase was more pronounced when the NCEP-ATP-III and AHA/NHLBI criteria were implemented compared with the IDF definition. Furthermore, the IDF definition included a large proportion of subjects who did not have increased CVD prevalence compared with the whole study population. These findings may have implications regarding which definition should we use to diagnose the MetS.