2010 Volume 37 Issue 3 Pages 389-397
Regarding diagnostic criteria for metabolic syndrome (MS), minor cases where the lipid, blood pressure, and blood glucose levels slightly exceed their normal ranges are considered to require careful observation, because they are border line between “normal” and“abnormal” conditions.
We devised a method to solve this problem by introducing the concept of an “undeveloped” condition.
Based on observations of the MS-score distribution for each examinee, checkup data were numerically processed into three areas representing the “normal”, “undeveloped”, and “critical” conditions, and applied to Self-Organizing Maps (SOM) to develop a tool visualizing the MS indicators.
The distinguishing capacity of our method was validated by comparing checkup data between MS judgment results employing our method and those using conventional diagnostic methods.
Furthermore, our method can visualize positional relationships between the MS indicators and the three areas on the two-dimensional SOM, promising its application to health guidance.