[Prevention in occupational health care--a societal challenge]

The metabolic syndrome, increasingly appearing amongst the elderly and recently in younger people with a most sudden increase in the age group < 30 years, is one of the main threats to European health in this century. Early diagnosis is the most efficient way to manage and to prevent metabolic syndrome from developing. Recent studies have convincingly demonstrated that lifestyle intervention, addressing diet and exercise, reduced the risk of developing diabetes and metabolic syndrome. The challenges today are to develop and implement efficient strategies to identify those on risk and to implement prevention management programs for clinical practice. Company medical officers could play an important role while identifying persons with increased risk for the metabolic syndrome, because they are addressing patients and healthy working persons but also reaching persons who normally are not reached by the health-care system. The occupational medical health promotion has the structural requirement to implement preventive intervention also by using its influence to establish healthy workplaces. Implementing managed prevention programs in the occupational medical care setting will enable prevention of the metabolic syndrome without consuming large resources. This process will be challenging and must be sustainable requiring many partners but resulting in a profitable chance for occupational health care.