**1. Introduction**

Metabolic syndrome (MS) is the complex of hormonal and metabolic disorders that increase the risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus and cardiovascular system (CVS) diseases [59, 78]. It was found the close pathogenic link between obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance (IR) and atherogenic dyslipidemia in the 60's of the last century [54].

According to clinical observations, MS was already registered in 20–25% of the adult popula‐ tion of the industrialized countries in 2004 [36, 61]. In epidemiological studies was found that among examined 8814 men and women older than 20 years the incidence of MS according to the US National Cholesterol Education Program (NCEP) criteria was about 24% among men and 25% among women in the USA [5, 6]. In another epidemiological study examining men of all ages, selected by random sampling, MS was diagnosed in 26.2% of the cases [37]. This prevalence of MS in the population increases with age and is highest among the elderly [24, 38]. In the results of other research groups related to the analysis of men and women, conducted in the USA, MS according to NCEP criterion was diagnosed in 6.7% people aged 20–29 years, in 43.5% people aged 60–69 years, and in 42% people aged 70 years [37,38]. It is also known that MS at a younger age is more common in men, but in women the incidence of MS increases gradually with age – especially during menopause [13, 78].

However, gender differences in age-related lipid metabolism changes under MS are not fully understood. In order to investigate the mechanisms of atherogenic dyslipidemia under MS, we study the dynamics of some parameters of lipid and lipoprotein metabolism in hamsters of different sex and age.
