The metabolic syndrome is no better than its components

The usefulness of the metabolic syndrome is subject of debate. A central issue from the epidemiological perspective is whether the syndrome predicts cardiovascular disease above and beyond its individual components. In this paper, the current evidence regarding this matter is reviewed, and the conclusion of two recent studies is that there is no added predictive value of the syndrome when the individual components are in the model. Rather than perpetuate an arbitrary concept and create another disease entity, attention should be redirected to the individual components and, in particular, to the ''driving'' condition whose downstream consequences are serious in terms of morbidity and mortality: central or visceral obesity.