Research

Longitudinal and age trends of metabolic syndrome and its risk factors: The Family Heart Study

Aldi T Kraja¹ , Ingrid B Borecki¹ , Kari North² , Weihong Tang³ , Richard H Myers⁴ , Paul N Hopkins⁵ , Donna Arnett⁶ , Jonathan Corbett¹ , Avril Adelman¹ and Michael A Province¹

¹From the Division of Statistical Genomics, Washington University School of Medicine, Saint Louis, MO, USA

²Department of Epidemiology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA

³Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

⁴Department of Neurology, Boston University Medical Center, MA, USA

⁵Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah Health Sciences Center, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

⁶Department of Epidemiology, University of Alabama School of Public Health, Birmingham, AL, USA

author email corresponding author email

Nutrition & Metabolism 2006, 3:41doi:10.1186/1743-7075-3-41

Published:	5 December 2006

Abstract

Background

We report longitudinal changes in the metabolic syndrome (MetS) in 2,458 participants from 480 families in the Family Heart Study. Participants were examined between 1994–96 (FHS-T1) and 2002–03 (FHS-T2), about 7.4 years apart. Additionally, the impact of medication on estimates of MetS prevalence, and associations of MetS with prevalent coronary heart disease (CHD) and type 2 diabetes (T2D) were studied.

Methods

Three definitions for MetS prevalence were considered. One represented the original (o) National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) MetS criteria. Two others considered the confounding of medications effects, respectively (m) lipid medications constituted a categorical diagnostic criterion for lipids variables, and (c) lipids and blood pressure variables were corrected with average clinical trials medications effects. Logistic regression of MetS on CHD and T2D, as well as the trend analysis of MetS by age, were performed.

Results

MetS increased from 17.1% in FHS-T1(o) to 28.8% in FHS-T2(o); from 19.7% in FHS-T1(m) to 42.5% in FHS-T2(m); and from 18.4% in FHS-T1(c) to 33.6% in FHS-T2(c). While we observed adverse changes in all risk factors, the greatest increase was for waist circumference (25%). The percentages of MetS were about 2 to almost 3 times higher in ages 50 years and older than in younger ages. The odds of having prevalent CHD were about 2.5 times higher in the subjects classified with MetS than without.

Conclusion

MetS percentages increased noticeably longitudinally and cross-sectionally with older age. These conclusions were reached with and without considering medication use, but correcting risk factors for medications use affects the MetS prevalence estimates. As found in other studies, MetS was associated with increased odds for prevalent CHD.