Metabolic Syndrome and Incident Coronary Heart Disease in Australian Indigenous Populations

This report aims to compare the prediction of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) and its components for morbidity and mortality of coronary heart disease (CHD) in a cohort of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander adults (TSIs). A total of 2,100 adults (1,283 Aborigines and 817 TSIs) was followed up for 6 years from 2000. Outcome measures were all CHD events (deaths and hospitalizations). Baseline anthropometric measurements, blood pressure (BP), fasting blood lipids and glucose were collected. Smoking and alcohol intake was self-reported. We found MetS was more prevalent in TSI (50.3%) compared to Aborigines (33.0%). Baseline MetS doubled the risk of a CHD event in Aborigines. Increased fasting triglycerides was stronger in predicting CHD (hazard ratio (HR): 2.8) compared with MetS after adjusted for age, sex, tobacco and alcohol consumption, and baseline diabetes and albuminuria for Aborigines but not among TSIs. MetS was not more powerful than its components in predicting CHD event. In Australian Aborigines, the triglyceridemic waist phenotype strongly predicts CHD event, whereas among TSI, baseline diabetes mediated the prediction of increased fasting glucose for CHD event.