Abstract
There is an increasing number of metabolic syndrome (MetS) patients worldwide, and there is no exception in South Korea. The risk complications of metabolic syndrome have been investigated by many previous research studies, while no data on any current trends of MetS are available. Therefore, the present study investigates the recent prevalence of MetS and its associated risk complications in Korean adults by using the Korean National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES). The Survey respondents (n = 4744) were adults over the age of 30, and they had participated in KNHANES 2016, which is a health survey of a national representative sample of non-institutionalized civilian South Koreans. The cross-tabulation analysis was applied to figure out the general characteristics impacting on the prevalence of MetS; furthermore, the odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) using multivariate logistic regression analysis were presented for the risk complications of MetS. Findings from this study indicated that subjective health status, family structure, age, income level, use of nutrition labelling and gender showed significant connections with the prevalence of MetS. The risk diseases, stroke (OR = 2.174, 95% CI = 1.377–3.433, p < 0.01), myocardial infarction (MI) (OR = 2.667, 95% CI = 1.474–4.824, p < 0.01) and diabetes (OR = 6.533, 95% CI = 4.963, p < 0.001) were explored and verified attributable to the prevalence of MetS. The findings in this study suggest that sociodemographic characteristics-concentrated strategies are vital to prevent the prevalence of MetS in South Korea, and relative risk complications ought to be cautiously dealt with as well.
Highlights
The metabolic syndrome (MetS) which is a combination of risk factors that consists of several correlations of metabolic origin, has been receiving more attention in recent years [1,2]
In terms of subjective health status, when participants held the opinion that they have the bad health status, the distribution between normal group and MetS group is 55.3% vs. 44.7%, and the proportional share of the MetS group was decreasing with an increment of the positive subjective health status
The higher the income level with the prevalence of Mets is 34.8%, while the prevalence of MetS in low-income level is 38.6%, and this finding verified that the better the socioeconomic position of an individual, the lower is the risk of premature coronary heart disease, which means the lower incidence of MetS [18,19,20]
Summary
The metabolic syndrome (MetS) which is a combination of risk factors that consists of several correlations of metabolic origin, has been receiving more attention in recent years [1,2]. The 10 major causes of death in South Korea were cancer, heart disease, cerebrovascular disease, suicide, pneumonia, diabetes mellitus, chronic lower respiratory disease, liver disease, traffic/transit accidents and hypertensive diseases [3]. Among these causes, the non-communicable diseases such as comprising cancers, cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, and chronic lung diseases, were preventable by recognizing the altering behavioral or intermediate risk factors like hypertension, pre-diabetic status, obesity and MetS [4]. MetS is reported as an important etiologic factor in the development of certain types of cancers [5], and the economic cost of cancer treatment has been steadily increasing. The economic burden for cancer treatment was USD 199.8 million, and the direct and indirect costs were USD 124.5 million and USD 75.3 million, respectively [6]
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
