Description:
<jats:p> Conclusion: Metabolic syndrome is conceptually useful. It has encouraged thought about the pathology of diabetes and cardiovascular disease, has facilitated research and has brought together cardiologists and diabetologists. But the criteria are neither needed nor additive for CVD risk assessment or diabetes screening or prediction. Neither are they needed to determine treatment benefit. </jats:p><jats:p> Better options would be to measure and target established risk factors such as lipids, smoking and elevated blood pressure. We should also be thinking about obesity and its prevention, and to do this we need changes in food, activity and fiscal environments. </jats:p>