Objective

We explored the trend in prevalence of hyperuricemia and metabolic syndrome in the US populations and investigated associations between components of metabolic syndrome and hyperuricemia by race.

Methods

We analyzed data from the four most recent NHANES cycles (2011 to March 2020), comprising 10,175 participants. Hyperuricemia is defined as serum urate > 7.0 mg/dL (men) or > 5.7 mg/dL (women), following the NHANES III guideline. Definition of metabolic syndrome follows National Cholesterol Education Program’s Adult Treatment Panel III (NCEP ATP III) guideline. We estimated the prevalence of metabolic syndrome and hyperuricemia in each cycle and performed subgroup analyses with logistic regression to investigate the patterns of associated components of metabolic syndrome with hyperuricemia.

Results

In the most recent cycle (2017-March 2020), the prevalence of metabolic syndrome was 45.9% and that of hyperuricemia was 20.7%. Over the 2011-2020 period, a significant rise in metabolic syndrome prevalence was observed among Hispanic and Asian populations, and the prevalence of hyperuricemia has increased significantly only in Hispanic. After adjustment for confounding factors, subjects with metabolic syndrome exhibited a higher hyperuricemia in women than in men. Elevated BP was the strongest factor with hyperuricemia. The association was the weakest in Asian population. Waist circumference was the only significant factor associated with hyperuricemia in Asian.

Conclusion

The prevalence of metabolic syndrome has increasing pattern, but there was no specific decadal trend in prevalence of hyperuricemia. There is an ethnic-specific association of metabolic syndrome and hyperuricemia, especially in Asian.