Active smoking and risk of metabolic syndrome: a meta-analysis of prospective studies.

​Cigarette smoking may raise the risk of developing metabolic syndrome.

This study examined the effect of cigarette smoking on the risk of developing metabolic syndrome using a meta-analytic approach. A total of 13 studies involving more than 50,000 individuals and over 8,000 cases of metabolic syndrome was included in this meta-analysis.

Analysis of the data from these studies reveal that metabolic syndrome was more likely to occur in active cigarette smokers than in never smokers. Cessation of cigarette smoking was found to reduce metabolic syndrome risk significantly in this study. The results of this study show that cigarette smoking may be a contributing factor to the development of metabolic syndrome.