The Most Important Predictors of Metabolic Syndrome Persistence after 10‑year Follow‑Up: YHHP Study

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is one of the world’s largest health epidemics, and its management is a major challenge worldwide. The aim of this 10‑year follow‑up study was to assess the most important predictors of MetS persistence among an Iranian adult population.

In this cohort study, 887 out of 2000 participants with MetS aged 20–74 years in the central part of Iran were followed‑up for about 10 years from 2005–2006 to 2015–2016. MetS was defined based on the criteria of NCEP‑ATP III adopted for the Iranian population. Cox proportional hazards regression was conducted to evaluate the predictors of MetS persistence in crude‑ and multivariate‑adjusted models.

Our analyses showed that 648 out of 887 participants (73%) completed the follow‑up and 565 (87.2%) of them had persistence of MetS after 10‑year follow‑up. There was a significant association between age, weight, body mass index, triglyceride, and waist circumference in participants who had MetS compared to those without MetS after 10‑year follow‑up (P < 0.05). There was a direct association between increases in the mean changes of systolic/diastolic blood pressure, waist circumference, and low HDL‑C and risk of MetS persistence after adjusting the model for sex and age in the total population (Ptrend < 0.05). The trends were the same for women except in diastolic blood pressure. After adjustment for potential confounders, the risk of MetS persistence in men was significantly higher than women (HR = 1.98, 95% CI: 1.38–2.85, Ptrend = 0.001).

Most of the risk factors of MetS were positively associated with persistence of MetS. Therefore, modification of lifestyle is recommended to reduce MetS.