INS and diabetic kidney disease: According to Fig. 2, significant (P < 0.001) positive correlations were noticed between serum hsa-miR-221 and fasting insulin (r = 0.504), fasting glucose (r = 0.407), HOMA IR (r = 0.610), ACR (r = 0.782), and BMI (r = 0.645) in diabetic nephropathy group.