High remnant cholesterol is associated with the metabolic syndrome and with type 2 diabetes (T2DM) and has attracted much interest as a cardiovascular risk factor. However, its distribution in T2DM patients with established cardiovascular disease is not clear. This issue is addressed in the present study. We obtained remnant cholesterol in a large series of patients with established cardiovascular disease (1481 patients with angiographically diagnosed CAD and 323 patients with sonographically diagnosed PAD). From our patients, 592 had T2DM and 1210 did not have diabetes. Remnant cholesterol was significantly higher in T2DM patients than in nondiabetic patients (p<0.001), with median values [interquartile ranges] of 23 [9-38] mg/dl vs. 16 [5-32] mg/dl. The distribution of remnant cholesterol in T2DM patients and in those without diabetes is shown in the histograms in figure 1. Both in T2DM patients and in nondiabetic patients the distribution was markedly right-skewed and deviated significantly (p <0.001, by Kolmogrorov-Smirnov tests) from normal distribution. We conclude that remnant cholesterol in patients with established CAD is higher in patients with T2DM than in nondiabetic patients and both among T2DM patients and among those without diabetes is distributed in a markedly right-skewed manner.
H. Drexel: None. T. Plattner: None. B. Larcher: None. A. Mader: None. A. Vonbank: None. A. Leiherer: None. A. Muendlein: None. C.H. Saely: None.
