Prevalence of the metabolic syndrome among adult New Zealanders of Polynesian and European descent.

T he metabolic syndrome describes the clustering of risk factors for diabetes and cardiovascular disease (1). New Zealand Polynesians of both Maori and Pacific descent have high rates of conponents for the metabolic syndrome: type 2 diabetes (2), obesity (2), hypertension (3), dyslipidemia (4), and coronary heart disease (5,6). There have been no previous reports of the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome in New Zealand since the release of the Adult Treatment Panel (ATP) III criteria (7). In this study, we compare the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome by ATP III criteria among New Zealanders of European and Polynesian descent.