[Prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Argentina in the last 25 years: systematic review of population observational studies]. / Prevalencia del síndrome metabólico en Argentina en los últimos 25 años: revisión sistemática de estudios observacionales poblacionales.

INTRODUCTION AND AIM: Metabolic syndrome (MS) comprises a set of risk factors for cardiovascular disease and diabetes. Argentina has numerous epidemiological studies on MS, however, there has been no systematic analysis of the prevalence of MS in our population. To estimate the prevalence of MS in the Argentine Republic, a systematic review of observational studies published during the period 1988-2014 was carried out. SEARCH STRATEGY: A bibliographic search was conducted in the MEDLINE (National Library of Medicine), SciELO (Scientific Electronic Library Online) and LILACS (Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature) databases on studies conducted in Argentina between January 1989 and December 2014. The following search terms were combined in English, Spanish and Portuguese: 'metabolic syndrome', 'insulin resistance', 'dysmetabolic syndrome', 'prevalence', 'epidemiology', and 'Argentina'. SELECTION OF STUDIES: Epidemiological studies based on the adult population of Argentina with specific report of the prevalence of MS (according to the WHO, ATP III or IDF criteria) were included in the analysis. SYNTHESIS RESULTS: In the initial bibliographic search, 400 publications were identified. In the second phase of search, 296 titles and abstracts were excluded. In the third phase, the full text of 104 studies was analyzed. Finally, 6 publications were included in the analysis that reported the prevalence of MS in a total of 10,191 subjects (39.6% male). The average age of the population was 45.2 years. The prevalence of MS (random effects model) was 27.5% (95% CI: 21.3%-34.1%). The prevalence of MS was higher in men than in women (29.4% vs. 27.4%, respectively, P=.02). In order of frequency, the most common components of MS were dyslipidaemia (38.3%), hypertension (33.4%), obesity (32.1%) and diabetes (7.5%). CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that the prevalence of MS is high, which represents a very important public health problem in Argentina.

Clinical trials of plafibride in geriatric patients.

During a period of 15 days, 90 geriatric patients with various disturbances in blood lipids and manifestations of cerebral arteriosclerosis ingested 1200 mg/d of N-2-(p-chlorophenoxy)-isobutryl-N'-morpholinomethylurea (plafibride, ITA 104). Its significant activity in decreasing the pre-beta-lipoproteins and increasing alpha-lipoproteins was demonstrated. At the same time plafibride inhibited platelet aggregation by 50%. The activity of plafibride was compared to those of clofibrate and the inactive placebo. A similar experiment was carried out with 44 geriatric patients comparing the clinico-therapeutic and biochemical benefits of plafibride in relation to clofibrate and acetylsalicylic acid (ASA). Apart from the biochemical results, the symptomatologic and eletroencephalographical results of the patients treated with plafibride was more significant and positive than with the other drugs. Plafibride also showed better gastric tolerance and a lower incidence of collateral effects than did clofibrate and ASA.