Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in the clinical practice of general medicine in Italy

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a complex clinical condition, characterized by the concomitant presence in the same individuals of multiple metabolic and cardiovascular (CV) risk factors, including high-normal blood pressure (BP), abdominal obesity, lipid abnormalities [low levels of high-density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol and high levels of triglycerides], insulin resistance and impaired fasting glucose tolerance (1). Following this initial definition, other additional features have been proposed to better define patients with MS, among which subclinical pro-inflammatory and pro-thrombotic states have been frequently associated with other metabolic abnormalities observed in these patients (2-5)