Factor Analysis of Metabolic Syndrome Components in a Population-Based Study in the South of Iran (PERSIAN Kharameh Cohort Study)

Background: we aimed to estimate the exploratory factor analysis (efa) of metabolic syndrome components based on variables including gender, bmi, and age groups in a population-based study with large sample size. methods: this study was conducted on 10663 individuals 40-70 yr old in phase 1 of the persian kharameh cohort study conducted in 2014-2017. efa of the metabolic syndrome components, including waist circumference (wc), systolic blood pressure (sbp), diastolic blood pressure (dbp), triglyceride (tg), high-density lipoprotein (hdl) and fasting blood sugar (fbs), was performed on all participants by gender, bmi (body mass index), and age groups. results: efa results in the whole population based on eigenvalues greater than one showed two factors explaining 56.06% of the total variance. considering factor loadings higher than 0.3, the first factor included: dbp, sbp, and wc, named as hypertension factor. the second factor also included tg, negative-loaded hdl, fbs, and wc, named as lipid factor. almost similar patterns were extracted based on subgroups. conclusion: mets is a multi-factorial syndrome. both blood pressure and lipid had a central role in this study and obesity was an important factor in both ones. hypertension, having the highest factor loading, can generally be a valuable screening parameter for cardiovascular and metabolic risk assessment.