Stability of the factorial structure of metabolic syndrome from childhood to adolescence: a 6-year follow-up study Martínez-Vizcaino, Vicente Ortega Porcel, Francisco Bartolomé Solera-Martínez, Montserrat Ruiz Ruiz, Jonatan Labayen, Idoia Eensoo, D. Harro, J. Loit, Helle-Mai Veidebaum, T. Sjöström, Michael Tracking Metabolic syndrome Confirmatory factor analysis Background 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. Methods 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. Results 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. Conclusions 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. 2013-11-04T10:15:43Z 2013-11-04T10:15:43Z 2011 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Martínez-Vizcaino, V.; et al. Stability of the factorial structure of metabolic syndrome from childhood to adolescence: a 6-year follow-up study. Cardiovascular Diabetology, 10: 81 (2011). [http://hdl.handle.net/10481/29016] 1475-2840 doi: 10.1186/1475-2840-10-81 http://hdl.handle.net/10481/29016 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Biomed Central