| Summary: | <p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Metabolic syndrome (MS) is a clustering of cardiometabolic risk factors that is considered a predictor of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and mortality. There is no consistent evidence on whether the MS construct works in the same way in different populations and at different stages in life.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We used confirmatory factor analysis to examine if a single-factor-model including waist circumference, triglycerides/HDL-c, insulin and mean arterial pressure underlies metabolic syndrome from the childhood to adolescence in a 6-years follow-up study in 174 Swedish and 460 Estonian children aged 9 years at baseline. Indeed, we analyze the tracking of a previously validated MS index over this 6-years period.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>The estimates of goodness-of-fit for the single-factor-model underlying MS were acceptable both in children and adolescents. The construct stability of a new model including the differences from baseline to the end of the follow-up in the components of the proposed model displayed good fit indexes for the change, supporting the hypothesis of a single factor underlying MS component trends.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>A single-factor-model underlying MS is stable across the puberty in both Estonian and Swedish young people. The MS index tracks acceptably from childhood to adolescence.</p>
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