Metabolic Syndrome Independently Ups Risk of Diabetes

Metabolic Syndrome Independently Ups Risk of Diabetes: The diagnosis of metabolic syndrome is useful and valuable for predicting Type 2 diabetes even in relatively lean patients. Even when the cutoff point of waist circumference for U.S. individuals was used in the metabolic syndrome criteria, the hazard ratio of metabolic syndrome for incident Type 2 diabetes was substantially unchanged. In both sexes, impaired fasting glucose was the strongest of the metabolic syndrome components at predicting the development of diabetes. They also found that the risk of diabetes increased as the number of syndrome components increased, from a hazard ratio of 1.76 for one component to 5.90 with four components, compared to subjects with normal fasting plasma glucose levels. At highest risk for developing diabetes were individuals who had both metabolic syndrome and impaired fasting glucose. (HR 6.76).Diabetes Care 2009;32:2288-2293.