I think we’ve known for a long time that both T1 and T2 diabetes seem to have a relation to high lipid numbers.
I first came to this realization when I visited my state’s research hospital 35 years ago to see about possibly getting involved with the DCCT and the intake was being managed at the Lipid Research Clinic. I asked the researchers and they told me they thought there was a very real correlation.
Many here and elsewhere have assumed that the lipid numbers are a result of high bg but I’ve always had the hunch it was not so simple, that it seemed more likely they were both caused by the same factors or even the other way around.
The DCCT results very clearly point to a strong relation between high average bg and microvascular complications like kidney disease, retinopathy, neuropathy. But the relation between high average bg and macrovascular complications has always, to me, been much less convincing, such that it looked to me like macrovascular complications are related but not in a simple “caused by high bg” way. It always looked to me like they both had the same root cause.