Prevalence of Metabolic Syndrome in Elderly and Agreement among Four Diagnostic Criteria

BACKGROUND: Metabolic syndrome (MS) is an aggregation of risk factors that increase the incidence of cardiovascular events and diabetes mellitus (DM). Population aging is accompanied by higher prevalence of MS, which varies depending on the population studied and the diagnostic criteria used. OBJECTIVE: To determine prevalence of MS in the elderly using four diagnostic criteria and agreement between them. METHODS: Cross-sectional study on 243 patients older than 60 years (180 women) in Niterói, RJ. They were evaluated by clinical examination, fasting glucose, fasting insulin, lipid profile and anthropometric measurements - weight, height, waist circumference and waist/hip ratio. Prevalence of MS was estimated by World Health Organization (WHO) modified, National Cholesterol Education Program - Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III), International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and Joint Interim Statement (JIS) criteria. RESULTS: Prevalence was high with the four criteria WHO (51.9%), NCEP-ATPIII (45.2%), IDF (64.1%) and JIS (69.1%), and agreement between criteria by kappa was moderate in almost all comparisons WHO vs. IDF (k = 0.47;95% confidence interval (CI), 0.35 to 0.58); WHO vs. NCEP-ATPIII (k = 0.51; 95% CI, 0.40 to 0.61); WHO vs. JIS (k = 0.45; 95% CI, 0.33 to 0.56); IDF vs. NCEP-ATPIII (k = 0.55; 95% CI, 0.45 to 0.65) and NCEP-ATPIII vs. JIS (k = 0.53; 95% CI, 0.43-0.64), except between IDF vs. JIS (K = 0.89;95% CI, 0.83 to 0.95), which was considered good. CONCLUSION: Prevalence of MS was high with the four diagnostic criteria, mainly by JIS. There was good agreement between JIS and IDF criteria and moderate among the others.