Carolina Cunha de Oliveira et al. Emanuelle Dias da Costa Anna Karla Carneiro Roriz Lilian Barbosa Ramos Mansueto Gomes Neto
Abstract
The article aimed to critically analyse studies which evaluated the capacity of anthropometric and clinical indicators to predict MetS in the elderly. Bibliographical research was performed using the electronic databasese Medline/PubMed, LILACS e SciELO , references from selected articles and contact with several authors. Twenty one articles involving anthropometric and clinical indicators in the elderly were analysed, using different MS criteria. Fourteen studies report anthropometric indicators, being the waist circumference (WC) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR), described as the best MS predictors, with the area under the ROC curve (AUC) over 0.70 (p < 0.05). The neck circumference was also described as an alternative indicator but with less discriminatory power. Lipid accumulation product (LAP) was the parameter with the best performance to identify MS, with an AUC over 0.85 and efficiency greater than 70%. The WC, WHtR and LAP indicators were the most sensitive for predicting MS. The use of these parameters may facilitate the early identification of MS, with good accuracy and low cost. In addition, it is important to determine specific cutoff points for the elderly, since obesity alone does not appear to be a strong predictor of MS in the elderly.