INS and chronic kidney disease: In the present study, a backward-stepwise regression analysis was conducted, employing transformed baseline proinsulin levels as the dependent variable and a set of independent variables including age, gender, education, history of dyslipidemia (0/1), history of chronic renal disease (0/1), history of diabetes (0/1), count of other medical conditions, BMI, fasting plasma glucose, and HbA1C.