LEP and systemic lupus erythematosus: In a cross-sectional study that included only SLE patients, Kondratyeva et al. reported that 76% of the patients had hyperleptinemia [22]. In contrast to these findings, in a study performed on an Indonesian population, the SLE group had a higher mean leptin level, but the difference was not statistically significant [19]. Another study in which no difference was seen between the two groups was a case-control study performed on an Italian population by Margiotta et al. [15].