The Metabolic Syndrome: Looking Beyond the Debates

The metabolic syndrome is a cluster of risk factors that lead to increased risk of developing cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) and type 2 diabetes. From the time it was identified by Reaven in 1988 as “syndrome X,”1 there has been little consensus on the risk factors that represent it. The three major definitions are provided as Supplementary Table S1 online. Apart from the differences in definitions, the role of drug therapy is unclear, and some have questioned the need to consider the metabolic syndrome a separate entity. Given this background, we briefly discuss the controversies, a simplified management strategy, and the areas of research that should be pursued in the future.