The categorical diagnosis of metabolic syndrome is highly unstable during adolescence, suggesting reduced clinical utility and that specific pharmacotherapy may be premature.
During adolescence, metabolic risk factor clustering is consistent. However, marked instability exists in the categorical diagnosis of metabolic syndrome. This instability, which includes both gain and loss of the diagnosis, suggests that the syndrome has reduced clinical utility in adolescence and that metabolic syndrome-specific pharmacotherapy for youth may be premature.
Goodman et al. (2007) studied this question.
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