The aim of this paper was to investigate if lipoprotein particle size and concentrations measured by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy were associated with incident type 2 diabetes. This prospective study of 26,836 healthy women at baseline was carried out for 13 years. Among the study subjects, 1,687 participants developed diabetes during the follow-up. The authors found that in initially healthy women, both triglycerides and HDL cholesterol were independently associated with diabetes but not LDL or total cholesterol LDL. Moreover, NMR-measured size and concentrations of LDL, HDL, and VLDL particles were also associated with diabetes independent of triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, and other factors. The lipoprotein particle size had an impact on the association between lipoprotein particles and the risk. Therefore, smaller average size of LDL and HDL particles, as well as the concentration of small LDL and HDL particles, was associated with increased risk. For VLDL particles, larger particles were more closely associated with diabetes than smaller particles. The authors explain this finding by suggesting that large VLDL particles carry more triglycerides than small VLDL particles and correlates more with the severity of insulin resistance. In addition, LDL, HDL and VLDL particle sizes measured by NMR were associated with incident type 2 diabetes and these associations remained significant after adjusting for established risk factors.
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