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Metabolic syndrome no more predictive of adult type 2 diabetes, atherosclerosis than BMI alone
Magnussen CG. Circulation. 2010;122:1604-1611.
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Youth with metabolic syndrome were two to three times more likely to develop type 2 diabetes and atherosclerosis later in life, according to study findings; however, this association was no more indicative of later-in-life disease than BMI alone.
The study included data from the population-based, prospective, observational Bogalusa Heart and Cardiovascular Risk in Young Finns studies that featured 1,781 participants. Researchers investigated the utility of four categorical definitions of youth metabolic syndrome and their components in predicting adult high carotid intima-media thickness and type 2 diabetes among those aged 9 to 18 years at baseline (1984-1988) who were then examined 14 to 27 years later (2001–2007).
Researchers reported that compared with participants free of metabolic syndrome at youth, those with early metabolic syndrome were two to three times more likely of having carotid intima-media thickness and type 2 diabetes in their adult years. Risk estimates with the use of high BMI, however, were similar to those of metabolic syndrome phenotypes in predicting adult outcomes, leading researchers to recommend screening for high BMI or overweight and obesity in the pediatric setting as a simpler, equally accurate alternative.
“Our findings have direct clinical relevance because they suggest that in the clinical setting, efforts to identify youth with heightened future risk of meaningful outcomes can be minimally achieved with the use of body mass index only, thus avoiding cost and other barriers associated with testing and classification of youth metabolic syndrome,” the researchers wrote. “However, clinicians who use high BMI to identify youth at increased future risk need to keep in mind that a large proportion of contemporary youth will be classified as at risk and that our analyses are unable to discount that youth metabolic syndrome may be useful in identifying and possibly treating other cardiometabolic disorders.”
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