High cholesterol disorder prevents diabetes?
Thursday March 12th, 2015
People with naturally high cholesterol levels may enjoy protection against the development of diabetes, according to Dutch researchers.
The inherited condition familial hypercholesterolaemia causes high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol in the plasma. It is known that people with the condition have a raised risk of cardiovascular disease, but now it seems they are less likely to develop type 2 diabetes.
Behind the high LDL levels is a problem with reduced up-take of cholesterol in tissues including the liver and the pancreas. Statin drugs, on the other hand, increase the cholesterol uptake and are linked with an elevated diabetes risk.
So Dr John Kastelein of the Academic Medical Centre, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, and colleagues carried out a study of the possibility that cholesterol up-take plays a crucial role.
They used figures on 63,320 people who had DNA testing for familial hypercholesterolaemia in a Dutch screening program from 1994 to 2014. Those with the condition had a 1.75% rate of type 2 diabetes, compared with 2.93% for those without. This equates to a 44% higher rate for those with the condition.
A significantly lower rate of diabetes risk was seen for both LDL receptor-deficient and receptor-negative mutation carriers.
Writing yesterday (10 March) in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the researchers say: "The prevalence of type 2 diabetes among patients with familial hypercholesterolemia was significantly lower than among unaffected relatives, with variability by mutation type.
"If this finding is confirmed in longitudinal analysis, it would raise the possibility of a causal relationship between LDL receptor-mediated transmembrane cholesterol transport and type 2 diabetes."
Besseling, J. et al. Association Between Familial Hypercholesterolemia and Prevalence of Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. JAMA 10 March 2015; doi:10.1001/jama.2015.1275
Tags: Diabetes | Europe | Genetics | Heart Health
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