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The observation that obesity, dyslipidemia, diabetes and hypertension occur simultaneously in many people was first made by Crepaldi in 1967. In the late 1970s this clustering of conditions was termed "metabolic syndrome" by German researchers. Since then the syndrome has been described under a number of guises as "Insulin resistance syndrome", "Syndrome X", "Plurimetabolic syndrome" and the "Metabolic syndrome". The syndrome is a multi-component disease brought on by combination of lifestyle and environmental factors, with some populations exhibiting a genetic susceptibility for its development. Metabolic syndrome increases the risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes. The National Cholesterol Education Program - Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP-ATP III) has recognized the metabolic syndrome as a cluster of abnormalities increasing the risk for both cardiovascular disease (CVD) and type 2 diabetes. The NCEP-ATP III guidelines have also underlined the central role of abdominal obesity in the development of this syndrome. The escalating prevalence of the syndrome has important health implications. Each component of the metabolic syndrome is an established cardiovascular disease risk factor, and the presence of multiple components confer greater risk than the sum of the risks associated with the individual ones. For instance, it has been shown that men with the simultaneous presence of fasting hyperinsulinemia, elevated apolipoprotein B concentration and an increased proportion of small LDL particles were characterized by a 20-fold increase in the risk for developing CVD over the 5-year follow-up period of the study, compared with men without this cluster of non-traditional risk markers. In addition, the risk of CVD associated with the atherogenic metabolic triad remained significant even after adjustment for traditional risk factors such as LDL-cholesterol, triglyceride and HDL-cholesterol levels. Risk assessment includes a list of biological parameters wherein lipids play an important role, especially triglycerides and HDL-particles. The traditional factors associated with the syndrome are obesity, insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, dyslipemia, hypertension and microalbuminuria. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]