White coat hypertension in definition of metabolic syndrome

Although white coat hypertension (WCH) is believed to have an effect on health, there is no term defining WCH in metabolic syndrome. Consecutive patients 20 years old or older who underwent a check-up were included. The study included 1068 cases. The prevalences of hyperbetalipoproteinemia, hypertriglyceridemia, dyslipidemia, impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), and WCH were similar to excess weight in that they increased significantly until the seventh decade of life and decreased thereafter significantly (P < 0.05 in most steps). On the other hand, the prevalences of hypertension (HT), diabetes mellitus (DM), and coronary heart disease (CHD) always increased significantly with age without any decrease (P < 0.05 in most steps), indicating their irreversibility in contrast to the reversibility of excess weight, hyperbetalipoproteinemia, hypertriglyceridemia, dyslipidemia, IGT, and WCH. Metabolic syndrome is a reversible progression step between health and irreversible final diseases terminating with increased mortality and disabilities. Thus, the definition of metabolic syndrome should include reversible metabolic risk factors such as excess weight (overweight and obesity), hyperbetalipoproteinemia, hypertriglyceridemia, dyslipidemia, IGT, and WCH, instead of irrevesible diseases such as DM, HT, CHD, and stroke that have already developed and require drug therapy. After development of one of the final metabolic diseases, the term metabolic syndrome probably loses most of its significance, since from that point on, nonpharmaceutical approaches such as lifestyle changes, diet, and exercise will provide little benefit to prevent development of the others, most likely due to the cumulative effects of the risk factors on body systems over a long period of time.