Meta-analysis of Atherogenic Index of Plasma and other lipid parameters in relation to risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus

AimsDiabetic dyslipidemia is one of important complication of type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Blood lipid parameters (e.g., triglyceride, TG; total cholesterol, TC; high-density lipoprotein cholesterol, HDL-C; low-density lipoprotein cholesterol, LDL-C; Atherogenic Index of Plasma defined as lg(TG/HDL-C), AIP), are important indexes in predicting risk of T2DM. This study performed comprehensive meta-analyses to evaluate the powers of these indexes, especially for AIP, on predicting risk of T2DM.MethodsWe searched PubMed Database, China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) and Wanfang Database in February 2014 to identify eligible studies. Case–control studies that have mean baseline values of AIP were included. Random-effect models were used to pool the summary standardized mean difference (SMD) in meta-analysis.ResultsFifteen eligible studies, with a total sample size of 4010, were included in meta-analysis. All these studies reported positive associations between AIP and T2DM. Moreover, the SMD for the AIP is 1.78 (95% confidence interval (CI): 1.04–2.52), which is higher than for other parameters (TG: 0.93, 95% CI: 0.78–1.09; TC: 0.46, 95% CI: 0.21–0.71; HDL-C: −0.89, 95% CI: −1.18 to −0.60; and LDL-C: 0.44, 95% CI: 0.11–0.77). Meta-analysis of association between BMI and T2DM gave a SMD of 0.85 (95% CI: 0.38 to 1.32).ConclusionsThe results suggest that lipid parameters have ability to reflect the risk of T2DM, but AIP may be more closely associated with the risk of T2DM. The current results suggest AIP may be used as a simple, easily calculated parameter in assessing the risk of T2DM.