Dyslipidaemia and diabetes

Dyslipidaemia, characterized by hypertriglyceridaemia, low HDL cholesterol, the accumulation of remnant particles and small dense LDL, is one of the major risk factors contributing to the burden of macrovascular disease in type 2 diabetes. It is open to therapeutic intervention by lifestyle and lipid‐lowering drugs and goals for lipid and lipoprotein concentrations are now included in international guidelines for patient management. There is good evidence from subgroup analyses of major coronary heart disease (CHD) secondary prevention trials that lipid‐lowering drugs are beneficial in diabetic patients. Less information is available for primary prevention and the results of on‐going trials performed specifically in diabetic populations are awaited. Nevertheless many patients will fulfil the absolute CHD risk criteria for primary prevention with lipid‐lowering drugs.