Medicine and Society The prevalence of metabolic syndrome among patients with type2 diabetes mellitus in Basrah Abbas Ali Mansour MD Department of Medicine, Basrah College of Medicine . Hattin Post Office, PO Box 142, Basrah, 42002 IRAQ Tel:+964(40) 7801403706 E-mail: aambaam@yahoo.com Abstract Background: Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is a cluster of multiple metabolic abnormalities that increase the risk of cardio- vascular morbidity and mortality. The aim of this study is to assess the prevalence of MetS in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Methods: This was a cross sectional hospital based study of patients with type 2 DM. MetS diagnosis was based on the presence of 2 of 4 metabolic abnormalities, which are hypertension, visceral obesity, high triglyceride and low high density lipoprotein. Results: Total number of patients was 200. Of these there were 145 males and 55 females. Age range was 28-88 years, and mean age 51.9±10.6 year. Over all MetS seen in 86% (82.7% of males and 94.5% of females). Conclusion: Highest prevalence of MetS was reported in this study which includes diabetic patients only, although this high figure may be due to a different definition and population studied with selection bias. The main stay of management of MetS is dietary modification and weight reduction which may delay the development of DM, improves the control of established DM and decreases morbidty and mortality associated with this syndrome. Key words: diabetes mellitus, metabolism, cross sectional studies, metabolic syndrome. Introduction According to the Third Report of the National Cholesterol Education Program Expert Panel on Detection, Evaluation and Treatment of High Blood Cholesterol in Adults in USA. Adult Treatment Panel III (ATP III) , MetS (formerly called syndr1ome X, insulin resistance syndrome, dysmetabolic syn- drome, cardiovascular multiple metabolic syndrome, multiple metabolic syndrome or cardio- metabolic syndrome) was de- fined, as when three or more of the following abnormalities are present, which are: abdominal obesity (AO) with waist cir- cumference for men >102 cm and women >88 cm, serum triglycerides (TG) 150 mg/dl ( 1.7 mmol/l), high density li- poprotein (HDL) cholesterol for men <40 mg/dl ( < 0.9 mmol/l , and for women <50 mg/dl (< 1.0 mmol/l), blood pressure 130/85 mmHg, and fasting plasma glucose 110 mg/dL(6.1 mmol/l). The syndrome is not new, having been already observed in 1923 by Kylin, who described the clustering of hypertension, hyperglycemia, and gout as a syndrome.3 MetS increases the risk for coronary heart disease and stroke by three fold with marked increase in cardiovascular mortal- ity.4 The aim of the study is to assess the prevalence of MetS in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM) according to the definition of the ATP III report. Methods This was a cross sectional hospital based study of patients with type 2 DM. It includes patients with type 2 DM seen in the in-patient and out-patient clinic of the Basrah Military hospital over a peroid from Jan 2002 to October 2002. All patients with type 2 DM, regardless of the duration of DM, were in- cluded if they agreed to particpate in this study. The new type 2 DM was diagnosed according to the American Diabetic Association (ADA) recommendations in 2002.5 Pa- tients who were currently on drug treatment for diabetes and hypertension were considered hypertensive and diabetic re- spectively. For blood pressure, the average of second and third blood pressure measurements in the office were considered. Two blood pressure recordings were obtained from the right arm of patients in a sitting position after 30 minutes of rest at 5-min intervals, and their mean value was calculated. The women were non-pregnant, and the blood estimation of lipoprotein was taken after at least an 8 hour fast. Diabetes du- ration ranged from a few days to 30 years. Since all of our patients were diabetics, the presence of 2 meta- bolic abnormalities other than DM, is enough to establish the diagnosis of MetS. The waist circumference was measured with a soft tape on standing subjects, midway between the lowest rib and the iliac crest.1 20 MEJFM - Volume 5 Issue 3 - May 2007