Metabolic Syndrome Pandemic

The metabolic syndrome is a multiplex risk factor that consists of several risk correlates of metabolic origin. In addition, to dyslipidemia, hypertension, and hyperglycermia, the syndrome carries a prothrombotic state and a proinflammatory state. Persons with the metabolic syndrome are at essentially twice the risk for cardiovascular disease compared with those without the syndrome. It further raises the risk for type 2 diabetes by about 5-fold. Although some investigators favor keeping risk factors separate for purposes of clinical management, others believe that identifying individuals with an aggregation of risk factors provides additional useful information to guide clinical management. In particular it…