ADIPOQ and chronic kidney disease: Finally, we performed multiple regression analyses to identify an independent association between plasma CTRP9 levels and carotid IMT after adjusting for BMI, plasma adiponectin level, and other potential confounders including age, sex, systolic BP, eGFR, HbA1c, serum triglyceride level, HDL-cholesterol level, LDL-cholesterol level, smoking status, and presence of treatment with statins and ARBs/ACEIs in the non-CKD or the CKD groups, separately.