Macrophages are proved to be the precursors of the lipidladen foam cells that characterize early atherosclerotic lesion. Hyperglycemia in diabetic patients lead to the high concentration of glycated low density lipoprotein(LDL) and abnormal metabolism of LDL. In this study, we used radioreceptor assay to compare the metabotic results of LDL from diabetic patients and from nondiabetic control subjects. We found that both uptake and degradation of diabetic LDL were significantly higher than that of control LDL. We also discovered that the total cholerslerol content of cultured macrophages incubated with diabetic LDL significantly increased as compared with that incubated with control LDL. This study suggests that interaction between glycated LDL and macrophages accelerates formation of foam cells, and contributes to the accelerated atherosclerosis of diabetes.