[Metabolic abnormalities as a basis for age-dependent diseases and aging? State of the art]

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a number of certain criteria reflecting abnormalities in lipid and glucose metabolism. These abnormalities are considered to be a reason for atherosclerosis, cardiovascular diseases (CVD) and diabetes mellitus type 2. The prevalence of CVD among those with diabetes is 3-5 folds higher than without diabetes. MS demonstrates ethnic and gender variants, its frequency depends on the lifestyle and age. Attention to MS has been attracted in the last decades induced by the obesity epidemic in US. The adipose tissue and high triglyceride blood levels have been regarded as hallmark of MS. It has appeared that metabolic ways of cholesterol, fat and glucose were tightly connected and united in a system of energy expenditure and reproduction. The high prevalence of MS, heart attacks and diabetes in the elderly population makes the evidence of age to be an independent risk factor of the development of metabolic abnormalities. But this problem is still out of the field of interest in gerontology. There exist a number of unsolved questions concerning the function of visceral adipose tissue, the role of free fatty acids in the insulin resistance, mechanisms of inflammation in the old age and so on that can be an object of gerontology. So, a program of advanced researches in this field is discussed.