MedWire News: The metabolic syndrome is significantly more common among people with bipolar disorder than in the general population, Spanish researchers have found.

The metabolic syndrome is an umbrella term for a cluster of risk factors, including diabetes, high cholesterol levels, obesity and high blood pressure, which significantly increase the risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular problems.

A number of previous studies have shown that the metabolic syndrome is common among patients with schizophrenia, but few have investigated the prevalence of the condition among patients with bipolar disorder, explain Dr Antoni Mainar, from Badalona Serveis Assistencials in Barcelona, and colleagues.

To address this, the team studied the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome, and its separate components, in 178 patients with bipolar disorder and around 86,000 patients without the condition.

Examination of the patients' medical records revealed that 25% of the bipolar disorder patients had the metabolic syndrome, as indicated by the presence of at least three risk factors. In contrast, just 14% of the other patients met criteria for the metabolic syndrome.

Indeed, all components of the metabolic syndrome were significantly more common among bipolar patients than other patients.

"Compared with the general population... the prevalence of the metabolic syndrome was significantly higher in patients with bipolar disorder, mainly due to a higher prevalence of obesity, high triglyceride [blood fat] levels, and low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels," Dr Mainar and colleagues write in the journal Bipolar Disorders.

They conclude: "These findings strongly support the development of health policies addressing this problem in bipolar disorder patients."