Stroke and the Metabolic Syndrome in Populations

See related article, pages 200–205. The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a constellation of inter-related metabolic abnormalities, including insulin resistance/diabetes, elevated blood pressure, obesity, and dyslipidemia.1 Sedentary lifestyle, dietary changes, and the obesity epidemic have led to a rising prevalence of MetS, with the syndrome now affecting an estimated 47 million adults in the United States.2Current American Stroke Association guidelines for primary prevention of stroke categorize MetS as a less well-documented risk factor.3 Although MetS is known to increase all-cause cardiovascular morbidity and mortality, less information is available on the relationship between the syndrome and risk of stroke. To address this, within the last year several large prospective studies have examined the risk for stroke in individuals with MetS.4,5 To date, reports have concentrated predominantly on elderly subjects and have not fully evaluated which of the individual MetS components confers greatest risk.In this issue of Stroke , Rodriguez-Colon et al6 investigated the rates of MetS components and incident stroke in almost 15 000 middle-aged …