Many studies have shown that patients diagnosed with the metabolic syndrome, by either the ATP III or WHO definition (or by their modifications), have more prevalent CVD or are at greater risk of developing it. In these studies, the increased CVD risk in patients with the syndrome ranged from 30 to 400%; this wide variation is probably due to the population studied, the precise definition of the syndrome adopted, and the length of follow-up. Studies have examined whether the difference in prevalence between the two definitions affects the predictive power for subsequent development of CVD.
Two of these found the ATP III definition to be a slightly better predictor of all-cause and cardiovascular mortality or CHD, whereas one showed that the WHO definition more consistently predicted CVD and all-cause mortality. The fact that all three studies made modifications to one or both of the…
