Association between metabolic syndrome and risk of cardiovascular disease, using different criteria and stratified by sex

AimThe purpose of this study is to determine the association between the components used to define metabolic syndrome and cardiovascular risk using different criteria stratified by sex.MethodsA cross-sectional study with 608 subjects enrolled at the out-patients department of the Thai Internal Medicine Clinic was performed between October 2006 and September 2007. Included subjects had metabolic syndrome as defined by WHO, NCEP III, or IDF. The demographic and laboratory characteristic of the subjects including BMI, waist circumference, waist/hip ratio, fasting blood glucose, 2 h postprandial blood glucose, triglyceride, HDL, blood pressure, and microalbuminuria, were measured and recorded by chart review. Cardiovascular risk was determined by pulse wave velocity. The sensitivity and specificity of the component of metabolic syndrome according to the three criteria were stratified by sex.ResultsThe HDL sensitivity was higher in females than in males. Among the different component of metabolic syndrome, blood pressure gave the strongest association with cardiovascular risk, with odds ratios of 13.6, 11.97, and 10.5 for the criteria of IDF, NCEP III, and WHO, respectively. Moreover, when analyzing by sex, the odds ratio for female subjects were about two times higher than that of males. The rest of the components in each of criteria exceptional HDL gave odds ratios of 2–4.ConclusionsThe appropriate components to predict cardiovascular risks are: high blood pressure and cut off point of waist circumference in females, as defined by the IDF criterion, and high triglyceride in males, as defined by the IDF criterion.