RESUMO
The metabolic syndrome (MS) is commonly found in clinical practice. There are many criteria to diagnose MS. The authors did a cross-sectional study to study the difference among the WHO criteria, the National Cholesterol Educational Program (NCEP) Adult Treatment Panel (ATP III), and the International Diabetes Foundation (IDF) in hypertensive patients. Between July and September 2005, 100 patients (62 women) treated at the hypertension clinic, Srinagarind Hospital were included. The WHO, NCEP A TP III and IDF criteria gave the diagnosis of MS in 37, 33, 60 cases, respectively. The IDF criteria had the significantly highest yield among those three criteria (p < 0.0001). Body mass index (BMI) was the only significant correlated with the diagnosis of MS by the IDF criteria (p-value = 0.04). It also had moderately positive correlated with waist circumference, WC (p < 0.0001, Pearson Correlation 0.58). At the cut point of BMI 23 kg/m2, we suggested the appropriate WC cut-point for Thai hypertensive men and women was 82.5 cm (32.5") and 79.5 cm (31.3"), respectively.