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Copyright: ©Author(s) 2026. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license. No commercial re-use. See permissions. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc.
World J Diabetes. Apr 15, 2026; 17(4): 117215
Published online Apr 15, 2026. doi: 10.4239/wjd.v17.i4.117215
Remnant cholesterol and the risk of incident type 2 diabetes: A community-based 14-year prospective cohort study
Ji Eun Jun, You-Cheol Hwang, Hong Yup Ahn, In-Kyung Jeong, Kyu Jeung Ahn, Ho Yeon Chung, Hyun Jin Ryu
Ji Eun Jun, You-Cheol Hwang, In-Kyung Jeong, Kyu Jeung Ahn, Ho Yeon Chung, Hyun Jin Ryu, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, Seoul 05278, South Korea
Hong Yup Ahn, Department of Statistics, Dongguk University-Seoul, Seoul KS034, South Korea
Author contributions: Jun JE was responsible for writing - original draft and revised manuscript, software, formal analysis; Ahn HY was responsible for formal analysis, data curation; Ryu HJ was responsible for data curation; Jeong IK, Ahn KJ, and Chung HY were responsible for methodology and review; Hwang YC was responsible for review & editing, conceptualization, funding acquisition.
Supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant, No. 2022R1A2C2009221.
Institutional review board statement: The study protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of the Korean Center for Disease Control and the Kyung Hee University Hospital at Gangdong Institutional Review Board (Approval No. KHNMC 2023-05-010).
Informed consent statement: Participants signed a written informed consent form and agreed to participate in the trial after fully understanding the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
Data sharing statement: The datasets generated during and analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
Corresponding author: You-Cheol Hwang, MD, PhD, Professor, Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Medicine, Kyung Hee University School of Medicine, No. 892 Dongnam-ro, Gangdong-gu, Seoul 05278, South Korea. khmcilyong@naver.com
Received: December 3, 2025
Revised: January 1, 2026
Accepted: February 9, 2026
Published online: April 15, 2026
Processing time: 134 Days and 4.8 Hours
Core Tip

Core Tip: Remnant cholesterol, a surrogate of triglyceride-rich lipoprotein burden, has recently gained attention as a contributor to cardiometabolic disease. Our findings underscore its independent predictive value for incident type 2 diabetes, beyond conventional lipid indices and established metabolic risk factors. Given its robust performance across multiple subgroups, remnant cholesterol may serve as a clinically relevant biomarker for early metabolic risk stratification and complement current approaches in predicting diabetes development.