Dysmetabolic syndrome: reducing cardiovascular risk

When the National Cholesterol Education Program revised the Adult Treatment Panel III guidelines in 2001, dysmetabolic syndrome was added as a secondary focus for cardiovascular risk factor modification, but only after low density lipoprotein cholesterol levels are optimized. The addition of dysmetabolic syndrome as a focus in risk reduction identified many individuals as at-risk for type 2 diabetes and/or cardiovascular disease who may have gone unrecognized and untreated until much later in the disease trajectory. Over the past 50 years, dysmetabolic syndrome has been studied under numerous other names and is closely associated with risk for both type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease.