Risk Syndrome Found In Overweight Teens

The analysis showed that 4.2 percent of adolescents meet the criteria for metabolic syndrome, which translates into 910,000 teens, the researchers reported in the August issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. The syndrome was found in at least 6.1 percent of males and 2.1 percent of females.

The syndrome is by far most common among those who are overweight. Nearly 30 percent of those who are either overweight or obese have the syndrome, the researchers found.

"That's exactly what's driving it -- the vast majority of kids in this sample who had this are overweight," said Weitzman, a professor of pediatrics at the University of Rochester.

"So when you go to the mall or the airport or the supermarket and you scratch your head because of the increasing number of markedly overweight adolescents you see, almost three out of every 10 is like a ticking time bomb for heart disease" because they have metabolic syndrome, he said.

Scott M. Grundy, director of the Center for Human Nutrition at the University of Southwestern Texas Medical Center in Dallas, said that if anything, the study could be underestimating the rate because the survey used the adult definition of overweight.

Jonathan Klein, chairman of the committee on adolescents for the American Academy of Pediatrics, called the findings "dramatically high -- it's almost one out of every 20 kids. That's at least one child in every kindergarten class," Klein said.

The risk for diabetes and heart disease drops sharply for those who have metabolic syndrome if they lose weight.

"We need to really focus our society and health care resources on more effective prevention strategies," Klein said.