Fig. 3: RPET-associated metabolites and risk of T2DM.

a Schematic representation of the quantification of metabolic biomarkers in the UKB cohort. b Heatmap illustrating the overall associations between RPET and all 249 metabolic biomarkers. Red indicates positive effects; blue indicates negative effect. c, d The top 30 metabolic biomarkers associated with RPET are displayed, along with their hazard ratios for incident T2DM (n = 5,714) per 1-SD increment estimated with multiple linear regression models and CPH models. The solid dots represent the estimated hazard ratios, and the horizontal lines represent the 95% CIs. Asterisks and steel blue indicates significant negative effects; asterisks and brick red indicates significant positive effects; light blue indicates insignificant. Two-sided statistical tests were conducted, and BH method was employed to reduce false discovery rate for multiple tests. * P < 0.05; ** P < 0.01; *** P < 0.001. Source data are provided as a Source Data file. Parts of a were modified from Servier Medical Art (smart.servier.com), licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License VLDL very low-density lipoproteins; IDL intermediate-density lipoproteins, LDL low-density lipoproteins, T2DM type 2 diabetes mellitus, RPET retinal pigment epithelium thickness, UKB UK Biobank, SD standard deviation, CI = confidence interval.