Incidence of metabolic syndrome and its characteristics of patients attending a diabetic outpatient clinic in a tertiary care hospital

OBJECTIVE: We sought to evaluate the incidence of metabolic syndrome and non-metabolic syndrome among type 2 diabetic patients attending the diabetic outpatient clinic at tertiary care hospital, Warangal. MATERIALS AND METHODS: A cross-sectional study was conducted in a period of 6 months from January 2011 to June 2011. The study group consisted of 75 type 2 diabetic patients. They were screened for hypertension, hyperlipidemia, obesity, and clinical characteristics, and other co-morbidities were recorded. Metabolic syndrome diagnosis was made as per ATP III guidelines. RESULTS: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was significant in men (54.8%) compared to women (45.2%). Incidence of metabolic syndrome was found to be more in normal weight patients (43.56%). Low high density lipoprotein (HDL) levels were observed in both rural (90.63%) and urban (95.65%) patients with metabolic syndrome, followed by increase in waist circumference. The mean HDL level was found to be 23.77 mg/dl. Patients in the age group 51-60 years were found to be more affected with metabolic syndrome. Sedentary household female patients (58.3%) and illiterates (41.8%) were suffering from metabolic syndrome. Patients with metabolic syndrome had been suffering with diabetes (duration of diabetes) from 1 to 5 years. In summary, this cross-sectional study characterizes the metabolic and non-metabolic syndromes of type 2 diabetes patients living in Telangana regions, using ATP III guidelines, and generates a biological resource that enables further investigation of numerous hypotheses related to genetic exposure of both in a population. CONCLUSION: These results suggest that higher prevalence of metabolic syndrome was observed in non-obese male patients and was significantly associated with aging. Nevertheless, further studies are required to confirm the metabolic syndrome in larger population.