Objective Metabolic syndrome, a major risk factor for cardiovascular disease and diabetes, is recognized as an important health problem. Both environmental and occupational noise exposure has been related to increased risk of cardiovascular disease. We examined if metabolic syndrome was associated to occupational noise exposure.

Methods Associations between quantitative measures of occupational noise exposure and metabolic syndrome were analysed with logistic regression in 411 industrial- and 154 finance and service workers selected as a random sample from 12 industries between 2009 and 2010. We used anthropometric measures and biomarkers to define metabolic syndrome as abdominal obesity and the presence of ≥ 2 of the following conditions: high blood pressure, high triglycerides, low HDL cholesterol and high HbA1c.

Results A total of 167 workers were classified with metabolic syndrome. After adjustment for potential confounders, prevalence ratios for metabolic syndrome comparing the highest to the lowest noise exposure quartiles were 2.04 (95% CI: 1.03–4.03) for cumulative occupational noise exposure. In stratified analyses, the association diminished for industrial workers and increased for finance and service workers.

Conclusion These cross-sectional findings suggest cumulative occupational noise exposure may contribute to cardiometabolic health, but results need to be confirmed with prospective data.