Leptin mediates the relationship between abdominal obesity and microalbuminuria in type 2 diabetic patients

Abdominal obesity has been implicated in the pathogenesis of microalbuminuria in patients with diabetes; however, the underlying mechanisms remain unclear. Increased leptin secretion by adipocytes may be one of the factors responsible for the relationship between abdominal obesity and microalbuminuria, because increased leptin secretion has been demonstrated to contribute to renal impairment. We therefore conducted a cross-sectional study to clarify the relationship between increased serum leptin levels associated with abdominal obesity and albuminuria in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). We studied a total of 502 adult patients with T2DM, 220 women and 282 men, with a mean (±SD) age of 60 ± 13 years. Patients with macroalbuminuria and those with an estimated glomerular filtration rate of