Abstract: Objective To analyze the relationship between metabolic syndrome (MS) and dietary patterns among adult residents in Liaoning province.Methods Information on nutrition and health status of adult residents (≥18 years old) in five survey sites of Liaoning province were extracted from the dataset of 2010-2012 Chinese Nutrition and Health Surveillance.Factor analysis was adopted to identify dietary patterns and unconditional logistic regression was used to explore the relationship between dietary pattern and the occurrence of MS among the residents.Results Three main dietary patterns were identified among the 1 843 participants,namely pattern A (mainly with rice,potato,light color vegetables and beans),B (mainly with other cereals,dark color vegetables,fish and shrimp,and fruits) and C (mainly with wheat,milk,pork,and eggs) and the proportions of the participants reporting the dietary patterns were 31.9%,31.6%,and 36.5% for pattern A,B,and C,respectively.There were significant region and age differences in the proportion of residents reporting dietary pattern A (both P<0.001),significant gender,region,and age differences in the proportion of residents reporting dietary pattern B (P<0.001 for all) and significant gender and region differences in the proportion of residents reporting dietary pattern C (both P<0.05).Unconditioned logistic regression analysis displayed that pattern A was a risk factor for low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (odds ratioOR=1.952,P<0.001) and hypertriglyceridemia (OR=1.983,P<0.05);pattern B was a risk factor for low high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (OR=1.403,P<0.05);and pattern C was a risk factor for central obesity (OR=0.623,P<0.05) and hypertriglyceridemia (OR=0.603,P<0.05).Conclusion Dietary pattern is closely associated with MS and its components among adult residents in Liaoning province.Specific health education should be promoted among the residents with different dietary patterns for the prevention of MS and its components among the residents.