CD34 and anemia (phenotype): Because traditional CVD risk factors, such as gender, age, smoking, diabetes, and CKD-related risk factors (i.e. anemia, chronic kidney disease-mineral bone disorder, GNRI; an index for assessing nutritional status, C-reactive protein; a marker of inflammation) are common in this population[30], we performed multivariate analyses adjusting the level of CD34+ cells with all these variables.