Metabolic syndrome and heart failure: data from the FADOI CONFINE study

Approximately 20%-30% of the population in industrialized countries suffers from metabolic syndrome (MetS), a condition that may double the risk of diabetes mellitus and heart diseases in the normal population. Both MetS per se and its components increase the risk of atherosclerosis and acute coronary artery disease and heart failure (HF). We reviewed the data from a recent survey of patients admitted to Italian internal medicine wards due to chronic heart failure to ascertain the prevalence and the relationships between MetS and HF in real life patients. Our data shows that some risk factors for this syndrome (above all obesity) reflect a sort of Janus phenomenon in that they are well-recognized risk factors for HF in young people, but they lose their unfavorable predictive value in elderly patients with HF.