DENVER — Screening for metabolic syndrome may identify patients at increased risk for comorbidities of obesity, according to researchers at the University of Colorado, Denver.
Dr. Kathy Love-Osborne presented a study of 83 obese teens with a family history of type 2 diabetes during a poster session at the annual meeting of the Society for Adolescent Medicine. To classify them as having metabolic syndrome (MS), modified Cook criteria were used, with patients having any three of the following considered to have MS: body mass index (BMI) or waist circumference above 95% for age and sex; blood pressure above 90% for age, sex, and height; triglycerides more than 110 mg/dL; HDL cholesterol level less than 40 mg/dL; and impaired fasting glucose (IFG), which was defined as fasting glucose levels above 100 mg/dL or impaired glucose tolerance (IGT), defined as levels above 140 mg/dL on a glucose tolerance test.
Of the 83 teens, 47 (57%) met three or more MS criteria, including all 10 of the teens with IGT. In addition, of the 33 participants with BMI more than 40 kg/m
Ultrasound results correlated with MS. Of 49 teens on whom any ultrasound was performed, results were abnormal in 24 participants; in the 37 subjects for whom a steatosis score was derived, this score also was significantly associated with MS criteria. Patients with one to two MS criteria had a mean score of 0.93, and those with three or more MS criteria had a mean score of 2.2.