The metabolic syndrome - the clustering of abdominal obesity, dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia and hypertension - is a major public health challenge worldwide. The metabolic syndrome is not benign; it is associated with a substantially elevated risk of type 2 diabetes (5-fold) and of cardiovascular disease (CVD) (2-3-fold), and its increasing prevalence could possibly reverse the gains made through recent declining CVD mortality. The metabolic syndrome is not a new condition. It was first described in the 1920s by Kylin, a Swedish physician, as the association of hypertension, hyperglycemia and gout.3 In the 1940s, attention was drawn to upper body adiposity (android or male-type obesity) as the obesity phenotype commonly associated with type 2 diabetes and CVD …