Endocrine Abstracts

Introduction: The diagnosis of the metabolic syndrome is less definite in children and adolescents compared to adults. The International Diabetes Federation (IDF) and National Cholesterol Education Program Adult Treatment III guidelines (NCEP ATP III) have proposed two different criteria for its diagnosis in these age groups. In this study we planned to compare these two criterias in detecting the metabolic syndrome in obese and overweight adolescents in a study group in Northern Cyprus.

Subjects and methods: A total of 274 obese and 46 overweight adolescents were included from the northern region of Cyprus. The mean age was 13.72±1.15 years (11.2–17). 156 (48.8%) were girls and 164 were boys (51.2%). We measured the subjects’ blood pressure, fasting blood glucose levels, HDL-C levels, triglycerides, body weight to the nearest 0.1 kg, body height to the nearest 0.1 cm. We calculated the BMI by dividing the weight in kilograms to the height in centimetres squared.

Results: Metabolic syndrome was detected in 18.2 and 47.8% in obese adolescents and 17.4 and 30.4% in overweight adolescents according to the IDF and NCEP ATP III criteria respectively.

Conclusion: The prevalence of metabolic syndrome was much higher when using the NCEP-III criteria compared to the IDF criteria both in obese and in overweight adolescents leading to a debate in determining which criteria to be used.