Metabolic syndrome has become a significant factor related to cardiovascular disease. According to the investigation of the Department of Health in 2007, there are 2890 thousand people who aged 18 or above with the metabolic syndrome.
The aims of the study are to analyze the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome of the elder and the related factors in Taiwan.
We used the data from the Elderly Nutrition and Health Survey in Taiwan (NAHSIT) conducted during 1999-2000. The definition of Metabolic syndrome was drawn from the criteria which announced by the Department of Health, Executive Yuan, Taiwan in 2006. The SPSS software version 12 was employed for the descriptive and inference statistical analysis.
The results found that the prevalence rate of the metabolic syndrome in Taiwan elders is 40.0%, the figure is 50.2% in female and 30.3% in male, the people who aged 65 to 69 have the highest rate of 43.8% and the lowest rate (22.1%) was found in the elder who aged over 80, the difference of the prevalence rate between the different sex and age groups both reached the significant
difference(P <0.05). We also found that the people who married, lower income ,vegetarian and alcohol drinkers have higher prevalence rate of metabolic syndrome. Besides the above factors, the result of the logistic regression found that the people who ate poultry less than 5 times a month had the higher
tendency to have the metabolic syndrome than the people who ate poultry more than 5 times a month, the OR is 1.37 (P<0.05).
The health authorities should design the effective intervention program for controlling the risk factors related to metabolic syndrome and avoid the onset of the related chronic diseases.
