Metabolic Syndrome and Risk of Cardiovascular Events After Myocardial Infarction

We aimed to assess the prevalence and prognostic role of metabolic syndrome (METS) and diabetes in post-myocardial infarction (MI) patients. Diabetes is a well known risk factor for patients with previous MI, but glycemic dysmetabolism develops over a protracted period of time. Scanty data are available on the role of METS in patients with previous MI. Adjusted Cox’s regression models, having diabetes, death, major cardiovascular events (CVE), and hospitalization for congestive heart failure (CHF) during follow-up as outcome events, were fitted on 11,323 patients with prior MI enrolled in the GISSI-Prevenzione Trial. At baseline, 21% and 29% of patients had diabetes mellitus and METS, respectively. The METS patients had a significant (93%) increased risk of diabetes during follow-up. As compared with control subjects, the probability of death and CVE were higher in both METS (+29%, p = 0.002; +23%, p = 0.005) and diabetic patients (+68%, p