Blood rheological properties are strongly related to the metabolic syndrome in middle-aged Chinese

The current investigation sought to evaluate the relation between hemorheological properties and the metabolic syndrome. 1400 office workers aged 35 to 59 years were enrolled in this study. Waist circumference and blood pressure were determined. Plasma high-density lipoprotein (HDL cholesterol), triglyceride, fasting blood glucose, plasma insulin and whole blood viscosity (WBV) at a high-shear rate of 200 s− 1 were measured at the attendance. Metabolic syndrome was defined according to National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP)/ATP III guidelines. The metabolic syndrome was identified in 18% of this sedentary population. Mean WBV was 4.71 ± 0.56 mPa s. One-way ANOVA indicated WBV increased across subjects with 0–4 metabolic syndrome components (F = 3.86, p < 0.01). The highest vs. lowest quartiles of WBV occurred significantly more often among subjects as the number of metabolic syndrome components increased. Across five categories of the metabolic syndrome, the frequencies of the occurrence of the highest vs. lowest quartiles were: 0.40, 0.87, 1.31, 1.92, and 4.80, respectively, showing a significant correlation (R = 0.817, p < 0.05). Univariate logistic regression analysis showed that the prevalence of hyperviscosity was predicted positively by waist circumference (OR = 1.018, 95% CI: 1.002–1.035, p < 0.05) and negatively by HDL cholesterol (OR = 0.295, 95% CI: 0.133–0.680, p < 0.01), independently of age, sex, and smoking status. In summary, this study has shown that WBV is strongly related to the severity of the metabolic syndrome. We suggest that the hemorheological parameters could potentially be used as an additional indicator of the metabolic syndrome.