Table 2.

Percentages of variance explained and eigenvalues from the principal components analyses and the coefficients^a of the measures in the metabolic syndrome, with six and four syndrome measures, defined from the first principal component^b

	First principal component with 6 measures		First principal component with 4 measures: the metabolic syndrome score
	Men (n=2,467)	Women (n=2,557)	Men (n=2,467)	Women (n=2,557)	Combined (n=5,024)
% Variance explained	41	40	45	46	50
Eigenvalue	2.47	2.41	1.82	1.84	2.00
Waist circumference	0.50	0.51	0.60	0.59	0.59
Log-triglycerides	0.46	0.45	0.50	0.52	0.51
Systolic blood pressure	0.30	0.33	0.47	0.48	0.47
Glucose	0.30	0.30	0.41	0.38	0.42
HDL-cholesterol	−0.34	−0.33
Log-insulin	0.49	0.48

^aThe coefficients are the correlation coefficients between the measures and the first principal component, and they are also the coefficients of the standardised measures in the metabolic syndrome score.

^bThe mean and standard deviation for each variable used in this first principal component are listed in Table 1, except for log-triglycerides (mean = − 0.03, standard deviation = 0.52) and log-insulin (mean = 0.43, standard deviation = 0.03) for men and women combined