The association of triglycerides and total cholesterol concentrations with newly diagnosed diabetes in adults in China

BACKGROUND: It has already been suggested that high abnormal blood lipid concentration is associated with hyperglycaemia. However, no data is available about the roles of triglycerides (TG) and total cholesterol (TC) levels in diabetes. Here, for the first time we investigated the roles of TG and TC levels, gender and abdominal fat in the development of newly diagnosed diabetes in China. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Two population-based cross-sectional surveys were conducted from 2006 to 2009 in Qingdao, China. Newly diagnosed diabetes was defined according to FPG and/or 2 h PG criteria. The associations between diabetes and TG, and TC levels were assessed by multi-variable logistic regression models. RESULTS: As compared with non-diabetes, the odds ratio[(95% confidence intervals), OR(95% CI)] for diabetes corresponding to hypertriglyceridemia (HTG) were 1.54 (1.01, 2.35) in men and 2.02 (1.49, 3.10) in women for TG and accompany with Hypercholesterolemia (HTC) 2.93 (1.97, 4.37) and 2.13 (1.49, 3.05) for TC, when both were fitted simultaneously in the model adjusting for age, geographic division, marital status, school years, family history of diabetes, monthly income, systolic blood pressure (SBP), diastolic blood pressure (DBP), waist circumference (WC), high density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), alanine amino transferase (ALT) and gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT). CONCLUSIONS: HTG in both gender, borderline high TC and HTC in men were an independent risk factor for diabetes in this Chinese population, however, HTC was mediated through abdominal fat for diabetes in women. Our findings may help to enhance the current knowledge of diabetes patho-physiology, and the associations between TG, TC level and diabetes is also clinically informative.