Prevalência de síndrome metabólica e sua associação com morbidades e a mortalidade, após cinco anos de seguimento, em idosos que frequentam um Serviço Ambulatorial de Geriatria

Abstract

Objective : The study attempted to estimate the prevalence of metabolic syndrome (MS) in seniors presenting at the Geriatrics Outpatient Service and analyze the association of metabolic syndrome with morbidity and mortality after a five-year follow-up. Method : A historic cohort study was carried out with patients attending the outpatient service from January through December 1998, at age 60 or older. In the first stage, patient charts were extensively reviewed, identifying patients with metabolic syndrome (MS), morbidity and lifestyle. At the second stage, the patients and/or their families were called for death reports in the period and its possible cause. A descriptive, comparative and multivariate analysis was conducted, and the survival curve was calculated as established by Cox and Kaplan-Meier. Results : Of a total of 383 old patients that attended the outpatient clinic in the period investigated, 283 (73.9%) were contacted. The comparison between the contacted sample and the missing one didn t show differences, suggesting the missing group wouldn t imply bias in the sample.The main results included the observation of: (1) 26.5% (75) MS prevalence; (2) 5.3% (15) mortality in the follow-up period among the seniors investigated, with only one MS patient dying in the period; (3) in the group affected, in addition to morbidities associated to the diagnosis (hypertension, diabetes, obesity, and dyslipidemia), the following disorders were significantly associated to MS: acute myocardial infarction and stable angina. Unlike other morbidities, osteoporosis was inversely associated to MS; (4) given the reduced number of individuals that died, no association between MS and mortality was observed in the study period. Conclusion : In spite of no association with mortality, most results related to MS are in agreement with literature and suggest that this disease is of great impact on geriatric practice.