Total bilirubin independently predicts incident metabolic syndrome among community-dwelling women.

Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is related to the increased risk of major cardiovascular diseases (CVD). The link between high serum total bilirubin (TBL) is cross-sectionally related to MetS and its components. However, whether serum TBL predicts incidence of MetS and its components remains inconclusive.

Methods: The present study included 893 women aged 70 ± 9 years from a rural village. We examined the relationship between serum TBL and MetS based on the modified criteria of the National Cholesterol Education Program's Adult Treatment Panel (NCEP-ATP) III report in a cross-sectional (N = 893) and cohort (N = 288) data.

Results: In the cross-sectional study, serum TBL (β = 0.536, p < 0.001) as well as age, alcohol consumption, exercise habits, history of CVD, SUA, GGT, and ALT was significantly and dependently associated with number of MetS components, but in the cohort study serum TBL was not associated with number of MetS components. Compared with the 1st tertile of serum TBL (0.20-0.55 mg/dL), multivariate-adjusted odds ratio (95% confidence interval) for the 2nd -3rd tertiles of serum TBL (0.54-2.00 mg/dL) was 0.70 (0.51-0.95) in the cross-sectional study and 0.41 (0.21-0.81) in the cohort study.

Conclusions: Our data demonstrated an independently negative association between serum TBL and MetS in Japanese community-dwelling women.