Hindawi Publishing Corporation International Journal of Endocrinology Volume 2013, Article ID 702095, 8 pages http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2013/702095 Clinical Study Metabolic Syndrome and Cardiovascular Risk Factors in a National Sample of Adolescent Population in the Middle East and North Africa: The CASPIAN III Study Patricia Khashayar, 1 Ramin Heshmat, 2, 3 Mostafa Qorbani, 4 Mohammad Esmaeil Motlagh, 5, 6 Tahere Aminaee, 5 Gelayol Ardalan, 5 Yasin Farrokhi-Khajeh-Pasha, 2 Mahnaz Taslimi, 7 Bagher Larijani, 2 and Roya Kelishadi 8 1 Osteoporosis Research Center, Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Institute, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 2 Endocrinology and Metabolism Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 3 Department of Epidemiology, Chronic Diseases Research Center, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran 4 Department of Public Health, Alborz University of Medical Sciences, Karaj, Iran 5 Bureau of Population, Family and School Health, Ministry of Health and Medical Education, Tehran, Iran 6 Department of Pediatrics, Ahvaz Jundishapur University of Medical Sciences, Ahvaz, Iran 7 Bureau of Health and Fitness, Ministry of Education and Training, Tehran, Iran 8 Department of Pediatrics, Child Growth and Development Research Center, Isfahan University of Medical Sciences, Isfahan, Iran Correspondence should be addressed to Roya Kelishadi; kelishadi@med.mui.ac.ir Received 14 October 2012; Revised 25 December 2012; Accepted 25 December 2012 Academic Editor: Mario Maggi Copyright © 2013 Patricia Khashayar et al. his is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Objective. he present study was designed to investigate the prevalence of diferent combinations of the metabolic syndrome (MetS) risk factors among a nationally representative sample of adolescents in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA). Methods. he study sample, obtained as part of the third study of the school-based surveillance system entitled CASPIAN III, was representative of the Iranian adolescent population aged from 10 to 18 years. he prevalence of diferent components of MetS was studied and their discriminative value was assessed by receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis. Results. he study participants consisted of 5738 students (2875 girls) with mean age of 14.7 ± 2.4 years) living in 23 provinces in Iran; 17.4% of participants were underweight and 17.7% were overweight or obese. Based on the criteria of the International Diabetes Federation for the adolescent age group, 24.2% of participants had one risk factor, 8.0% had two, 2.1% had three, and 0.3% had all the four components of MetS. Low HDL-C was the most common component (43.2% among the overweight/obese versus 34.9% of the normal-weight participants), whereas high blood pressure was the least common component. he prevalence of MetS was 15.4% in the overweight/obese participants, the corresponding igure was 1.8% for the normal-weight students, and 2.5% in the whole population studied. Overweight/obese subjects had a 9.68 increased odds of (95%CI: 6.65–14.09) the MetS compared to their normal-weight counterparts. For all the three risk factors, AUC ranged between 0.84 and 0.88, 0.83 and 0.87, and 0.86 and 0.89 in waist circumference, abdominal obesity, and BMI for boys and between 0.78 and 0.97, 0.67 and 0.93, and 0.82 and 0.96 for girls, respectively. Conclusion. he indings from this study provide alarming evidence-based data on the considerable prevalence of obesity, MetS, and CVD risk factors in the adolescent age group. hese results are conirmatory evidence for the necessity of primordial/primary prevention of noncommunicable disease should be considered as a health priority in communities facing a double burden of nutritional disorders.