[Impact of the new definitions in the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in an adult population at Bucaramanga, Colombia].

Introduction: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome depends on the criteria used for its classification. Three criteria in common use are those from International Diabetes Federation (IDF), the Adult Treatment Panel (ATP-III) or its update (ATP-IIIa).

Objective: The prevalence statistic for generated metabolic syndrome was compared on the basis of each of the three criteria in an adult population.

Materials And Methods: The sample consisted of 155 teachers and employees in the school of medicine. The average age was 40.9; 54.2% were men. The three criteria were applied and the prevalences were compared with the Wilcoxon test and Cohen's kappa.

Results: Metabolic syndrome prevalence generated by each criterion was as follows: ATP-III was 12.3% (95%CI 7.5-18.5), ATP-IIIa was 34.8% (95%CI 27.4-42.9) and IDF 32.9% (95%CI 25.6--40.9). The prevalence indicated by ATP-III was lower than the ATP-IIIa or IDF prevalences (p < 0,001); however those of ATPIII-a and IDF were similar (p=0,083). Poor agreement was seen between ATP-III and ATP-IIIa (k=0.414, IC95% 0.409-0.420), and between ATP-III and IDF (k=0.374, IC95% 0.368-0.379); however, very good agreement was obtained between ATP-IIIa and IDF (k=0.957, IC95% 0.950-0.963).

Conclusion: The new definitions for metabolic syndrome, ATP-IIIa and IDF, increase the prevalence statistic by three times. This occurred despite the inclusion in IDF of an obesity factor in the criteria set.