Atherosclerotic patients usually suffer from degrees of hypoxia, tissue hypoperfussion (i.e., renal hypoperfusion), and anemia which may tend to pathophysiologically high levels of EPO (Gainer, 1987; Shimizu et al., 1988; Van Der Meer et al., 2004a,b, 2008; Westenbrink et al., 2007b). Here, EPO is linked to anemia (phenotype).