Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Iranian adult population, concordance between the IDF with the ATPIII and the WHO definitions

BackgroundDifferent criteria have been proposed by the WHO, the ATPIII and the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) for the diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome (MES). The objective of this study was to estimate the prevalence of this syndrome using the IDF definition among Iranian adults and to compare it with the prevalence estimated using the two other definitions.Materials and methodsThe prevalence of the MES was determined according to the three different proposals in 10,368 men and women aged ≥20 years participated in the cross-sectional phase of the Tehran Lipid and Glucose Study. To assess the degree of agreement between different MES definitions, the k test was used.ResultsThe prevalence of MES (95% confidence interval) was 32.1% (31.2–33.0) by the IDF definition, 33.2% (32.3–34.1) by the ATPIII and 18.4% (17.6–19.2) according to the WHO definition. The sensitivity, specificity of the IDF definition for detecting MES were 91%, 89% for the ATPIII and 73%, 77% for the WHO definition, respectively. The k statistics for the agreement of the IDF definition was 66.3 ± 0.01 with the ATPIII and 39.5 ± 0.01 with the WHO definition.ConclusionIn the Iranian population, the IDF definition for MES has a good concordance with the ATP III definition and a low concordance with the WHO definition.