NPPB and diabetes mellitus: Among the biomarkers that showed a positive association with MCVE in the combined group, after further adjustment for diabetes, hypertension, smoking, and BMI, the relationship between CRP (p = 0.22), insulin (p = 0.80) and MCVE were no longer significant, while the relationship between Lp(a) (p = 0.004), neopterin, (p = 0.0003), NT-proBNP (p<0.0001) and sRAGE (p = 0.0005) and MCVE remained statistically significant.