Metabolic syndrome as a risk factor for venous thromboembolism
Four out of five components of the metabolic syndrome phenotype are individually associated with venous thromboembolism (VTE). This prospective population-based study was designed to assess the impact of metabolic syndrome and its individual components on the risk of VTE among 6170 subjects participating in the Tromsø Study in 1994-1995, and followed-up for first ever VTE event. During a mean follow-up period of 10.8 years, 194 validated first VTE events were observed. In age- and gender-adjusted analysis, metabolic syndrome was associated with increased risk of VTE, this risk significantly increasing with the number of individual metabolic syndrome components. In multivariable analysis, waist enlargement, as surrogate for abdominal obesity, was the only component significantly associated with VTE. When abdominal obesity was omitted as a diagnostic criterion, none of the other components was associated with increased risk of VTE. Metabolic syndrome is associated with incident VTE, with abdominal obesity playing a pivotal role as risk factor/marker among individual metabolic syndrome components.


















