SELP and metabolic syndrome: At the baseline visit, the number of platelets in the blood was positively associated with increasing waist circumference, but not with other components of the metabolic syndrome, whereas platelet secretion of adenosine triphosphate and expression of P-selectin were inversely associated with increasing blood glucose and blood pressure.23 Thus, a lack of associations of the “metabolic syndrome” as an index or summary measure based on recommended cutoff scores of the five elements may mask associations of its individual components.