Hematological Inflammatory Markers and Severity of Metabolic Syndrome Components among Adults with Metabolic Syndrome: A Cross-Sectional Study

Abstract

Background: Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of metabolic abnormalities associated with chronic low-grade inflammation and increased cardiovascular risk. Haematological inflammatory markers derived from routine blood counts may serve as simple indicators of systemic inflammation. Objectives: To assess the association between haematological inflammatory markers like-WBC count, neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio, platelet-to-lymphocyte ratio, and monocyte-to-lymphocyte ratio and metabolic syndrome and to evaluate their relationship with Metabolic syndrome severity.

Methods: This hospital-based cross-sectional study included 170 adults fulfilling NCEP-ATP III criteria for Metabolic syndrome. Clinical, anthropometric, and biochemical parameters were recorded. NLR, PLR, and MLR were calculated from complete blood count parameters. Statistical analysis included ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, Chi-square test, and multiple linear regression.

Results: The mean age of participants was 52.7±10.0 years, and 55.9% were females. WBC count, NLR, PLR, and MLR increased significantly with increasing number of Metabolic syndrome components (p<0.001). NLR showed strong positive correlations with BMI (r=0.858), fasting blood sugar (r=0.984), and triglycerides (r=0.983), and a strong negative correlation with HDL-C (r=-0.989) (all p<0.001).

Conclusion: The present study demonstrates that inflammatory hematological markers, particularly NLR, PLR, MLR show significant associations with increasing metabolic syndrome severity in univariate analyses, suggesting their potential role as indicators of systemic inflammation in metabolic syndrome. However, after mutual adjustment in the multivariate regression model, none of these markers emerged as independent predictors of metabolic syndrome severity.