Lipoprotein (a) is an independent risk for coronary heart disease in NIDDM patients. Increasing urinary albumin excretion also predicts the development of coronary heart disease in NIDDM patients. We investigated whether there is a potential relationship between plasma lipoprotein (a) levels and the degree of urinary albumin excretion rate in a population of NIDDM patients. The subjects were divided according to urinary albumin excretion rate as normoalbuminuric (n=79) microalbuminuric (n=31) and macroalbuminuric (n=15). Age, body mass index sex, and per cent smoking were similar in the three groups, the duration of diabetes and glycosylated hemoglobin level were different in the macroalbuminuric group (p