The forensic medical characteristic of sudden death associated with metabolic syndrome

Abstract

The detection of grade II-III central obesity on a corpse in conjunction with the identification of two additional criteria (such as arterial hypertension and impaired glucose tolerance) provides, if combined with the autopsy data (including the visual reduction of muscular mass, the increased total amount of the adipose tissue, gynecomastia in men together with hypertrophied abdominal adipose tissue accumulation, decreased face and body pilosis), a basis for diagnostics of metabolic syndrome (MS). The objective parameters for this purpose are waist circumference measurements, corpse weight and height, the degree of visceral obesity, narrowing of the renal arteries as a result of their compression by the surrounding adipose tissue, and accumulation of epicardial fat confirmed by the results of the biochemical analysis. The signs of plasmorrhagia combined with fibrinoid degeneration of the vascular walls in the microcirculatory bed make it possible to suspect, with a high degree of probability, the development of hypertensive crisis that may result in a sudden death of the patients presenting with metabolic syndrome.