However, exogenous EPO treatment to renal failure patients was associated with an increased risk of hypertension and cardiovascular events (Besarab et al., 1998; Singh et al., 2006), and higher levels of endogenous EPO in healthy individuals were associated with higher incidence of heart failure (Garimella et al., 2016; Sun et al., 2021). This evidence concerns the gene EPO and acute kidney injury.