[Prevalence of metabolic syndrome and associated risk factors in ecuadorian university students]

Overweight and obesity in in young people especially in children and adolescents is considered as public health problem in the world. Obesity could be the most important cause of insulin resistance. For this reason obese children and adolescents become in a risky group for developing metabolic syndrome (MS). In Ecuador is shocking the low following that is given to the diagnosis of MS for predicting the risk of cardio and cerebral vascular disease and diabetes mellitus.

To determine the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and its risk factors in a sample of students from the "Universidad Central del Ecuador" (UCE) in Quito.

Students form first, second and third semester of Medicine College in UCE were included in the study. The age range was between 17 and 25 years old. All students were measured weight, height, body mass index (BMI, blood pressure, waist circumference and serum levels of total cholesterol, HDL, LDL, triglycerides and glucose.

The study shows that the prevalence of MS was 7.58% (IDF). It means that 1 of 13 students had MS. 22.24% has pre obesity and 3.14% has obesity. We found that waist circumference was mainly higher in women than men (33.67% vs. 9.55) of the 31.79% of low values of HDLc, the 24.50% occurred among women and 7.29% among men. , the values of total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol and glucose were normal.

In the tested sample was found that 1 out of 13 students had MS and 1 out of 2 had at least one risk factor for MS. According with the pre-obesity and obesity result, 1 out of 4 students shows one of these symptoms. In addition, these results show the direct relationship between risk factors and TA. Finally, Healthy lifestyles promotion (includes non-pharmacological treatments such diet and exercise) could be the first goal to prevent metabolic disease, because the large amount of persons with at least one risk factor for MS.