Time since diagnosis of diabetes, plasma fasting insulin, HDL-C and us-CRP, all of which were significantly associated with circulating LIPCAR levels in univariate analysis, and plasma fasting glucose, myocardial steatosis, SBP, diastolic blood pressure (DBP) and heart rate, which have been previously associated with diastolic function19, were separately entered as independent variables into model 1 (model 2), in order to take into account the potential confounding effect of these variables on the associations observed. The gene discussed is CRP; the disease is diabetes mellitus.