Does the combination of serum albumin and uric acid levels predict incident metabolic syndrome in individuals without baseline metabolic syndrome?
Higher uric acid levels consistently predict incident metabolic syndrome regardless of serum albumin, whereas higher albumin only predicts metabolic syndrome in those with lower uric acid levels.
Background Serum albumin and uric acid have been positively linked to metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, the association of MetS incidence with the combination of uric acid and albumin levels has not been investigated. We explored the association of albumin and uric acid with the risk of incident MetS in populations divided according to the levels of these two parameters.Methods In this retrospective longitudinal study, 11,613 non-MetS participants were enrolled among 24,185 individuals who had undergone at least four annual check-ups between 2006 and 2012. The risk of incident MetS was analyzed according to four groups categorized by the sex-specific medians of serum albumin and uric acid.Results During 55,407 person-years of follow-up, 2,439 cases of MetS developed. The risk of incident MetS increased as the uric acid category advanced in individuals with lower or higher serum albumin categories with hazard ratios (HRs) of 1.386 (95% confidence interval CI, 1.236 to 1.554) or 1.314 (95% CI, 1.167 to 1.480). However, the incidence of MetS increased with higher albumin levels only in participants in the lower uric acid category with a HR of 1.143 (95% CI, 1.010 to 1.294).Conclusion Higher levels of albumin were associated with an increased risk of incident MetS only in individuals with lower uric acid whereas higher levels of uric acid were positively linked to risk of incident MetS regardless of albumin level.
Lee et al. (Thu,) studied this question.
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