Non-HDL cholesterol as a predictor for incident type 2 diabetes in community-dwelling adults: longitudinal findings over 12 years

Non-HDL cholesterol is a simple measure to analyze the total amount of proatherogenic lipoproteins in the blood and to predict development of cardiovascular disease. However, it is unclear whether non-HDL cholesterol has a relationship with incident type 2 diabetes. This study aimed to evaluate the association between non-HDL cholesterol and incident type 2 diabetes with a large-sample, community-based Korean cohort over a 12-year period. Among the 10,038 total participants, 7608 (3662 men and 3946 women) without diabetes were selected from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study (KoGES). Their non-HDL cholesterol level was divided into quartiles. The hazard ratios (HRs) with 95% confidence intervals (CIs) for incident type 2 diabetes were calculated using multivariate Cox proportional hazards regression models after adjusting for potentially confounding variables. In total, 1442 individuals (18.9%: 1442 of 7608) developed type 2 diabetes during the 12-year follow up period, with an incident rate of 3.0–5.0. Compared to the reference first quartile, the HRs (95% CIs) of incident type 2 diabetes for the second, third, and fourth quartiles increased in a dose-response manner after adjusting for potentially confounding variables, including the HOMA-IR marker. Non-HDL cholesterol level at baseline could be a future predictor of type 2 diabetes even when prior glucose or insulin (HOMA-IR) levels are normal.