Metabolic syndrome is an epidemic that affects more and more people, increasing the probability of suffering metabolic and cardiovascular diseases in the short, medium or long term depending on the severity. The purpose of this article is to review the metabolic syndrome, assessing consensus, controversy and prevalence. The methodology was the preparation of a literature review on various health care databases, which were from 43 articles published from 2010 to 2015, in the general population. SM rate ranges from 0% to 90% depending on genders, ages and regions. There is still lack of consensus on cutoffs of diagnostic criteria. Thus, it is concluded that the prevalence of metabolic syndrome is being increased, urging the need for early diagnosis and treatment to promote the health of the global population.