Utility of obesity and metabolic dyslipidemia (a non-insulin based determinate of the metabolic syndrome and insulin resistance) in predicting arterial stiffness.

Increased arterial stiffening is not only a hallmark of the aging process but the consequence of many metabolic abnormalities such as insulin resistance (IR), obesity, and metabolic dyslipidemia. In patients with the cardiometabolic syndrome, arterial stiffening is consistently observed across all age groups. A core feature linking obesity and the metabolic syndrome to arterial stiffness has been IR. However, including other metabolic abnormalities such as metabolic dyslipidemia increases the risk prediction of arterial stiffness in a dose-dependent fashion. Chronic hyperinsulinemia also increases the activity of both the systemic and the local RAAS which contributes to the development of arterial stiffness. All of these relevant metabolic features that predict arterial stiffness are appropriately incorporated in the METS-IR used in the current study.