World Health Organization-defined metabolic syndrome is a better predictor of coronary calcium than the adult treatment panel III criteria in American men aged 40-49 years.

Abstract

Detection of coronary artery disease, a major cause of death in the U.S., is important in primary prevention settings. The noninvasive screening method of electron beam-computed tomography (EBCT) can be used to quantify coronary arterial calcification (CAC) and identify subjects with subclinical coronary artery atherosclerosis (1,2). However, EBCT screenings of all asymptomatic subjects is not practical in the clinical setting (3,4). Therefore, identification of high-risk subjects before EBCT evaluation is necessary. Currently, the metabolic syndrome, a constellation of risk factors, is used to identify high-risk individuals over and above conventional coronary risk factors because of the independent association of the metabolic syndrome with subsequent development of cardiovascular diseases and diabetes (5–10). The purpose of this study was 1 ) to determine whether risk identification using metabolic syndrome as a criterion is useful for the detection of CAC with EBCT and 2 ) to compare the usefulness of the National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP-III) guidelines (5) definition of metabolic syndrome with the World Health Organization (WHO) (8) definition. We examined 100 male residents in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, aged 40–49 years, without evidence of clinical cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer, renal failure, or familial hyperlipidemias. …