A systematic review on the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Iranian children and adolescents

Metabolic syndrome (MetS), a cluster of cardiovascular risk factors, is one of the most common metabolic disorders, which lead to many chronic diseases. The link between childhood MetS and occurrence of atherosclerosis and its sequels in adulthood are well documented. This study aims to systematically review the prevalence of MetS among Iranian children and adolescents.
An electronic search was conducted on studies published from January 1990 to January 2015.The main international electronic data sources were PubMed and the NLM Gateway (for MEDLINE), Institute of Scientific Information (ISI), and SCOPUS. For Persian databases, we used domestic databases. We included all available population-based studies and national surveys conducted in the pediatric age group aged 3-21 years old.
In this review, 2138 articles were identified (PubMed:265; Scopus:368; ISI:465; SID: 189; IranMedex: 851; Irandoc: 46). After quality assessment 13 qualified articles were evaluated. The number of total population and points of data were 24772 and 125, respectively. Regarding the geographically distribution, we found 2 national-, 6 provincial- and 5 district level points of data. The prevalence range of MetS among children was 1-22% using different definitions. Reported range of pediatric MetS defined by different criteria were as follows: National Cholesterol Education Program-Adult Treatment Panel III ( ATPIII); 3-16%,International Diabetes Federation( IDF); 0-8%, American Heart Association(AHA); 4-9.5%, The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey(NHANES III); 1-18%, Deferranti; 0-22%.
MetS is a common metabolic disorder among Iranian children and adolescents, with increasing trends during the last decades. This finding provides baseline useful information for health policy makers to implement evidence based- health promotion for appropriate controlling of this growing health problem for the pediatric population.