Leptin Predicts Diabetes but Not Cardiovascular Disease: Results from a large prospective study in an elderly population

OBJECTIVE—To clarify the association of circulating levels of leptin with risk for cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and new-onset diabetes in men and women. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODS—We related baseline leptin levels to CVD events (n = 864) and incident diabetes (n = 289) in an elderly population (n = 5,672) over 3.2 years of follow-up. RESULTS—In treatment-, age-, and country-adjusted models, leptin was not associated with risk of CVD in men (hazard ratio 1.02 [95% CI 0.90–1.16] per unit log-leptin increase) or women (1.05 [0.91–1.20]) but was associated with risk of diabetes in men (2.75 [2.14–3.52]) and women (1.54 [1.22–1.94]). After adjusting for classic risk factors and BMI, C-reactive protein, and glucose, the diabetes association retained significance in men (1.85 [1.30–2.63]) but not in women (0.89 [0.64–1.26]). CONCLUSIONS—Leptin, similar to other markers of adiposity in general, is more strongly related to risk of diabetes than CVD in the elderly.