A 6-year prospective study on the development of diabetes in Chinese with the metabolic syndrome

To investigate the association between metabolic syndrome and new-onset diabetes mellitus, a total of 1679 subjects without diabetes at baseline were followed-up for new-onset diabetes as defined by fasting plasma glucose ≥7.0 mmol/L and/or 11.1 mmol/L at 2 hours (OGTT). After a median follow-up of 6.4 years, 66 new cases of diabetes were observed in men and 54 in women. The presence of the metabolic syndrome at baseline was a strong predictor of incident diabetes with hazard ratios for the NCEP and IDF definitions of 4.1 and 3.5, respectively. The hazard ratios for fasting plasma glucose ≥6.1 or 5.6 mmol/L were 6.9 and 4.1, respectively. The NCEP and IDF criteria had 41.9% and 31.7% sensitivity and 87.5% and 90.2% specificity; their positive predictive values were around 20% only, but their negative predictive values were around 95%. Thus, a person without the metabolic syndrome at baseline is unlikely to become diabetic whereas a person with the metabolic syndrome is at high risk of developing diabetes and should undergo lifestyle changes and periodic measurements of fasting glucose.

Abstract