Metabolic Syndrome Checker.

Metabolic syndrome is not a single disease but a cluster of five cardiometabolic risk factors: central obesity (waist), high triglycerides, low HDL, raised blood pressure, and raised fasting glucose. Cross any three and you meet the NCEP ATP III definition. The clustering matters: together they roughly double cardiovascular risk and raise type-2-diabetes risk around five-fold, more than the sum of the parts.

The shared root for most people is insulin resistance and visceral fat, which is why the components rise and fall together, and why a single intervention (losing abdominal fat, building muscle, cutting refined carbohydrate) often clears several criteria at once. A criterion you treat with medication still counts as "met," because controlled-but-present risk factors still carry risk.