Faculty of Medicine, University of Glasgow, Scotland, UK. p.welsh@clinmed.gla.ac.uk
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.