The association of metabolic disorders with the metabolic syndrome is different in men and women

Aims: Metabolic disorders depend on genetic, hormonal and environmental factors, whose relations may differ between genders. Therefore, we compared the contribution of metabolic disorders to the metabolic syndrome in women and men. Methods: To this end, we used a hierarchical classification statistical method to classify subjects into similarity groups according to clinical and biological parameters. Data were collected from 3,508 men and women aged 35-64 years, from a cardiovascular disease survey. Results: In both women and men, hierarchical classification identified a cluster corresponding to the metabolic syndrome representing 14 and 15% of the women's and men's sample, respectively. In women, elevated body weight (women's Z-score: 1.59 vs. men's Z-score: 1.29; p < 0.005), waist girth (1.62 vs. 1.30; p < 0.001) and low HDL cholesterol (-0.95 vs. -0.75; p < 0.05) were significantly larger contributors to the metabolic syndrome than in men. In contrast, systolic (0.59 vs. 0.95; p < 0.0001) and diastolic (0.55 vs. 0.99; p < 0.0001) blood pressure and apolipoprotein B (0.51 vs. 0.71; p < 0.0001) contributed significantly less in women than in men. Finally, insulin (n.s.), glucose (n.s.), triglycerides (n.s.) and LDL-cholesterol (n.s.) contributions were not different between genders. Conclusion: These results are consistent with the concept that a clustering of metabolic disorders occurs frequently in both women and men. However, the contribution of several metabolic disorders to the metabolic syndrome is different in men and women. This finding supports the concept that different criteria are necessary to define the metabolic syndrome in women and men. Copyright (C) 2004 S. Karger AG, Basel.