Visit-to-visit variability in the measurements of metabolic syndrome components and the risk of all-cause mortality, cardiovascular disease, and arterial stiffness

Background and aims The risk of adverse health conditions varied according to the number of metabolic syndrome components. We aimed to evaluate the risk of mortality and incident cardiovascular events according to the number of components with high variability. Methods and results A total of 43,737 Kailuan Study participants with ≥3 examinations of waist circumference, fasting blood glucose, systolic blood pressure, triglyceride, and high-density lipoprotein during 2006–2013 were included in the present study. Visit-to-visit variability in each parameter was defined by the intraindividual standard deviation across visits. High variability was defined as the highest quartile of variability. Participants were classified numerically according to the number of high-variability components (e.g., a score of 0 indicated no high-variability component). There were 1551 deaths during a median follow-up of 5.9 years, and 950 incident cardiovascular disease (CVD) cases during a median follow-up of 4.9 years. In the multivariable adjusted model, compared with participants with low variability for all components, participants with ≥3 high-variability components had significantly higher risks for all-cause mortality (hazards ratio [HR], 1.61; 95 % confidence interval [CI], 1.35–1.91) and incident CVD event (HR, 1.45; 95 % CI, 1.16–1.82). Additionally, participants with ≥3 high-variability components had increased odds of arterial stiffness, as measured by brachia-ankle pulse wave velocity (odds ratio [OR], 1.39; 95 % CI, 1.19–1.63). Conclusions Our findings suggest that participants with at least three metabolic parameters with high variability experienced increased risk of CVD and all-cause mortality.