Abstract

Background: Metabolic syndrome is a collection of risk factors for two major epidemics, cardiovascular disease and diabetes, including central obesity, high blood pressure, hyperglycemia, hypertriglyceridemia, and decreased high-density lipoprotein cholesterol. Cardiac arrhythmias in patients with metabolic syndrome are very common, diverse and complex, including both supraventricular and ventricular arrhythmias. Objectives: (1) Studying clinical and paraclinical characteristics and arrhythmias using 24-hour Holter electrocardiography in patients with metabolic syndrome. (2). Investigating the relationship between components of metabolic syndrome and cardiac arrhythmias on 24-hour Holter monitoring. Materials and methods: A comparative cross-sectional descriptive study, conducted from August 2022 to May 2023. Results: There were 107 patients with metabolic syndrome participating in the study. The factor with the highest proportion was increased waist circumference with 86.92%. The most common symptoms were palpitations with 18.68%. Arrhythmia on 24-hour Holter ECG accounted for 52.34% and was statistically significantly higher than 28.04% on 12- lead ECG (p > 0.05). Among cardiac arrhythmias on 24-hour Holter ECG, the highest rate was atrial fibrillation with 19.63%. There was an association between increased waist circumference and increased fasting blood glucose with cardiac arrhythmia. Metabolic syndrome patients with increased waist circumference and increased fasting blood glucose were 3.06 and 5.88 times more likely to have arrhythmias, respectively, than patients without these factors (p > 0.05). Conclusion: There was a relationship between increased waist circumference and increased fasting plasma glucose in metabolic syndrome with arrhythmia