Population Comparison of Two Clinical Approaches to the Metabolic Syndrome: Implications of the new International Diabetes Federation consensus definition

Adams et al compare two definitions of metabolic syndrome for the distribution and prevalence of the syndrome in a representative biomedical population study of predominantly European adults from Adelaide, South Australia. Their study has demonstrated a high prevalence of the metabolic syndrome using the new International Diabetes Federation (IDF) definition. In men aged 40 above and women 70 above, the IDF definition, using a smaller waist circumference, categorized 15-20% more people as having the metabolic syndrome than the Adult Treatment Panel III definition.