Abstract: Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of many metabolic abnormalities which can cause severe harm to human health. Spontaneously hypertensive rat (SHR) is a hypertension animal model and some of its sub-strains have already been used in the study of metabolic syndrome. This article reviews the progress in the studies on sub-strains of SHR in the animal model of metabolic syndrome in order to provide some evidence for the rat model selection in the research work of metabolic syndrome.