LEP and diabetes mellitus: db/db Mice exhibit hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, obesity, and dislipidemia and have thus been widely used as an experimental model of type 2 diabetes mellitus.11,19 However, these mice are functionally leptin deficient, a feature that could affect studies of postischemic neovascularization insofar as leptin is a proangiogenic factor.20 We thus sought to confirm that observations made in db/db mice were consequent to their diabetic phenotype and not secondary to functional leptin deficiency or obesity.