EVALUATION OF ROLE OF HYPERURICEMIA AS AN ACTIVE COMPONENT OF METABOLIC SYNDROME

Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of interrelated metabolic risk factors that increase the risk for the development of atherosclerotic disease and type 2 diabetes mellitus. Uric acid is the end product of purine catabolism. Although hyperuricemia has been linked to gout, renal disease, hypertension and cardiovascular disease its association with metabolic syndrome remains unclear. The objective of our study was to assess the association between hyperuricemia and metabolic syndrome and also to assess whether hyperuricemia in metabolic syndrome was an independent risk factor for the development of atherosclerotic disease. 100Cases and 100 age and sex matched healthy controls were selected for the study. Blood samples were collected, serum uric acid, total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL-C and HDL-C were measured. The serum uric acid levels were significantly elevated in cases than controls. Also total cholesterol, triglycerides, LDL-C showed a graded increase and HDL-C a graded decrease with increasing uric acid levels. A positive correlation between serum uric acid levels and total cholesterol, triglycerides and LDL-C and a negative correlation between serum uric acid levels and HDL-C was also observed. Therefore from this study we were able to conclude that uric acid can be included as one of the components of metabolic syndrome and can also be considered as an independent risk factor for the development of atherosclerotic disease in patients with metabolic syndrome.