Health Related Quality of Life in Patients with Metabolic Syndrome
Anna Postolova
Department of Internal Medicine, Stanford University School of Medicine, Palo Alto, United States.
Omid Dorani
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA (Mr. Dorani, Drs. Brown, Powell-Hicks, Dous, Becker and IsHak), United States.
Kimberly Brown
Department of Psychiatry, University of Southern California (USC), Los Angeles, United States.
Allycin Powell-Hicks
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA (Mr. Dorani, Drs. Brown, Powell-Hicks, Dous, Becker and IsHak), United States.
George Dous
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA (Mr. Dorani, Drs. Brown, Powell-Hicks, Dous, Becker and IsHak), United States.
Bret Becker
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA (Mr. Dorani, Drs. Brown, Powell-Hicks, Dous, Becker and IsHak), United States.
Waguih William IsHak *
Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences, Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles, CA (Mr. Dorani, Drs. Brown, Powell-Hicks, Dous, Becker and IsHak), United States and Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences, David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, Los Angeles, United States.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Purpose: The metabolic syndrome (MetS) is characterized by obesity, dyslipidemia (high triglycerides and low HDL cholesterol), hyperglycemia, and hypertension. With the constantly increasing epidemic of metabolic syndrome in the US population, our purpose is to review the impact of metabolic syndrome on health related quality of life (HRQOL).
Methods: A literature search was conducted on articles in the English language on the Ovid MEDLINE, PubMed, and Cochrane databases from 2002 to 2011. The abstracts of 622 relevant articles were reviewed for accordance with our criteria, resulting in 80 selections that broadly addressed MetS or the involved disorders. Twenty-one papers with studies using HRQOL measurement were selected for inclusion in this review.
Results: Metabolic syndrome negatively impacts health related quality of life. Two of the conditions comprising metabolic syndrome, obesity and hyperglycemia, have the most negative effects on HRQOL. The consequences are most prevalent in the physical component of HRQOL.
Conclusions: The negative impact of metabolic syndrome on HRQOL affects a large proportion of the population. Further research is needed to guide in the prevention and proper treatment of MetS in order to improve patients’ HRQOL.
Keywords: Metabolic syndrome, quality of life, health-related quality of life.