NPPB and type 2 diabetes mellitus: Importantly, a variant in high linkage disequilibrium with rs198389 (rs632793 within the adjacent locus NPPA, r2 = 0.87) was shown to be associated with BNP/NT-pro-BNP levels in a meta-analysis of four cohorts comprising more than 14,000 individuals; the allele associated with a lower T2D risk was associated with higher BNP/NT-pro-BNP levels [6].