Changing definitions of metabolic syndrome.

The first description of patients with clustering of various metabolic abnormalities was as early as 1923 but it was more than five decades later, in 1988, that Reaven coined the term 'syndrome X' for this entity. The last two decades have brought forth a number of definitions and criteria to identify this condition. Various studies have demonstrated disparities in these definitions and a few researchers have questioned the utility of these criteria and even the existence of such a syndrome.