Metabolic syndrome in Mexican children: Low effectiveness of diagnostic definitions

Abstract Background Early identification of children with metabolic syndrome (MS) is essential to decrease the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease in adulthood. Detection of MS is however challenging because of the different definitions for diagnosis; as a result, preventive actions are not taken in some children at risk. The study objective was therefore to compare prevalence of MS in children according to the IDF, NCEP-ATP-III, Cook, de Ferranti and Weiss definitions, considering insulin resistance (IR) markers such as HOMA-IR and/or metabolic index (MI). Methods A total of 508 Mexican children (aged 9–13 years) from seven schools were enrolled in a cross-sectional study. Somatometric, biochemical, and hormonal measurements were evaluated. Results Frequency of MS was 2.4–45.9% depending on the definition used. Frequency of IR in children not diagnosed with MS was 12.4–25.2% using HOMA-IR and 4.0–16.3% using MI. When HOMA-IR or MI was included in each of the definitions, frequency of MS was 8.5–50.2% and 7.7–46.9% respectively. The kappa value including HOMA-IR and/or MI was greater than 0.8. Conclusions This study demonstrated the poor effectiveness of the current criteria used to diagnose MS in Mexican children, as shown by the variability in the definitions and by the presence of IR in children who not diagnosed with MS. Inclusion of HOMA-IR and/or MI in definitions of MS (thus increasing agreement between them) decreases the chance of excluding children at risk and allows for MS prevalence between populations.