AIM: To examine the relations of alcohol consumption to the prevalence of metabolic syndrome in Shanghai adults.METHODS: We performed a cross-sectional analysis of data from the randomized multistage stratified cluster sampling of Shanghai adults, who were evaluated for alcohol consumption and each component of metabolic syndrome, using the adapted U.S. National Cholesterol Education Program criteria. Current alcohol consumption was defined as more than once of alcohol drinking per month.RESULTS: The study population consisted of 3953participants (1524 men) with a mean age of 54.3 ± 12.1years. Among them, 448 subjects (11.3%) were current alcohol drinkers, including 405 males and 43 females.After adjustment for age and sex, the prevalence of current alcohol drinking and metabolic syndrome in the general population of Shanghai was 13.0% and 15.3%,respectively. Compared with nondrinkers, the prevalence of hypertriglyceridemia and hypertension was higher while the prevalence of abdominal obesity, low serum high-density-lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C) and diabetes mellitus was lower in subjects who consumed alcohol twice or more per month, with a trend toward reducing the prevalence of metabolic syndrome. Among the current alcohol drinkers, systolic blood pressure, HDL-C, fasting plasma glucose, and prevalence of hypertriglyceridemia tended to increase with increased alcohol consumption.However, Iow-density-lipoprotein cholesterol concentration,prevalence of abdominal obesity, low serum HDL-C andmetabolic syndrome showed the tendency to decrease.Moreover, these statistically significant differences were independent of gender and age.CONCLUSION: Current alcohol consumption is associatedwith a lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome irrespe-ctive of alcohol intake (g/d), and has a favorable influence on HDL-C, waist circumference, and possible diabetes mellitus. However, alcohol intake increases the likelihoodof hypertension, hypertriglyceridemia and hyperglycemia.The clinical significance of these findings needs furtherinvestigation.