Hyperleptinemia positively associated with central arterial stiffness in hemodialysis patients

Leptin plays a role in stimulating vascular inflammation, vascular smooth muscle hypertrophy, and augmenting blood pressure, which contributes to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis and leads to arterial stiffness. This vascular damage, measured by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity (cfPWV), is recognized as an independent predictor of cardiovascular mortality in hemodialysis (HD) patients. The aim of this study was to evaluate the relationship between serum leptin and arterial stiffness in HD patients.

In 112 of the 126 HD patients were eligible and their biochemical data were collected for analysis. Serum leptin level was measured using a commercial enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay kit. Carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was measured by a validated tonometry system (SphygmoCor). Those have cfPWV values above 10 m/s are defined as the high arterial stiffness group.

Among the participants, thirty-eight of them who were in the high arterial stiffness group, had a higher prevalence of diabetes mellitus (p = 0.002), age (p = 0.029), body mass index (BMI, p = 0.018), body fat mass (p = 0.001), hemoglobin (p = 0.040), and serum leptin levels (P<0.001). Multivariable logistic regression analysis showed that leptin (odds ratio [OR] 1.09; 95% confidence interval [CI] 1.04-1.14; p <0.001), diabetes (OR 7.17; CI 1.39-37.00; p = 0.019), body fat mass (OR 1.16; CI 1.02-1.33; p = 0.027); and hemoglobin (OR 2.11; CI 1.15-3.87; p = 0.015) were independently associated with arterial stiffness in HD patients.

In our study, hyperleptinemia was positively correlated to the high cfPWV and thus was related to high arterial stiffness in HD patients.