Creating a Metabolic Syndrome Research Resource using the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey

Metabolic syndrome (MetS) is multifaceted. Risk factors include visceral adiposity, dyslipidemia, hyperglycemia, hypertension and environmental stimuli. MetS leads to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes and stroke. Comparative studies, however, have identified heterogeneity in the pathology of MetS across groups though the etiology of these differences has yet to be elucidated. The Metabolic Syndrome Research Resource (MetSRR) described in this report is a curated database that provides access to MetS-associated biological and ancillary data and pools current and potential biomarkers of MetS extracted from relevant National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data from 1999-2016. Each potential biomarker was selected following the review of over 100 peer-reviewed articles. MetSRR includes 28 demographics, survey and known MetS-related variables, including 9 curated categorical variables and 42 potentially novel biomarkers. All measures are captured from over 90 000 individuals. This biocuration effort provides increased access to curated MetS-related data and will serve as a hypothesis-generating tool to aid in novel biomarker discovery. In addition, MetSRR provides the ability to generate and export ethnic group-/race-, sex- and age-specific curated datasets, thus broadening participation in research efforts to identify clinically evaluative MetS biomarkers for disparate populations. Although there are other databases, such as BioM2MetDisease, designed to explore metabolic diseases through analysis of miRNAs and disease phenotypes, MetSRR is the only MetS-specific database designed to explore etiology of MetS across groups, through the biocuration of demographic, biological samples and biometric data.