Objectives: The term metabolic syndrome (MetS) refers to the coexistence of interlinked risk factors of metabolic origin, contributing to the development of arteriosclerotic cardiovascular diseases as well as type 2 diabetes and their cardiovascular complications. The aim of the study is the assessment of the prevalence of MetS among paramedics of the Świętokrzyskie Center of Emergency Medical Services, depending on the adopted diagnostic criteria.
Material and methods: The study included 140 paramedics (2 women and 138 men), aged 23–60 years old (median = 43 years, average age = 41.5 years, standard deviation = 10.8 years). The age distribution of the subjects was significantly different from the normal distribution (p-value < 0.0001). The oldest age group (50 years old and above) was overrepresented by nearly a half compared to the youngest group (up to 29 years old). Metabolic syndrome was defined on the basis of the International Diabetes Federation (IDF) criteria from 2005 and IDF in agreement with the American Heart Association/National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (AHA/NHLBI) from 2009.
Results: According to the IDF/2005 criteria, in which the necessary condition is the diagnosis of central obesity, MetS was recorded in 26.4% of the subjects (37 people). This is statistically significantly less often than the IDF/AHA/NHLBI/2009 definition of p = 0.001 – 35%. The frequency of the MetS occurrence was statistically significantly related to the age of the subjects and the age groups.
Conclusions: The prevalence of the MetS in the subject group is evaluated to be significant. The prevalence of MetS is diversified by the applied diagnostic criteria with age being the factor increasing its frequency. The most common factor influencing the prevalence of MetS is blood pressure and waist circumference.
Keywords: metabolic syndrome; paramedics; prevalence; criterion; IDF/2005; IDF/2009.
This work is available in Open Access model and licensed under a CC BY-NC 3.0 PL license.