LEP and chronic kidney disease: However, in a study of 205 patients with advanced stages 3–5 non-dialysis dependent CKD from Taiwan by Lu et al., a positive association between higher serum leptin levels and aortic stiffness measured by carotid-femoral pulse wave velocity was observed [20] Yet two other studies of maintenance hemodialysis patients from Taiwan and Israel conducted by Tsai et al. and Beberashvili et al., respectively, did not observe significant associations between serum leptin levels and cardiovascular outcomes nor mortality [21,22].