Declaration

Ethics approval and consent to participate

The Ethics Committee of the Karolinska Institutet at the Campus Flemingsberg, (EPN) Stockholm, Sweden, approved the study protocol and written informed consent was obtained from each patient (Dnr 273/94, Dnr 2007/166331/4, Dnr 2008/1748-31/2) and the protocol adhered to the statutes of the Declaration of Helsinki.

Consent for publication

Our manuscript does not contain any individual person’s data in any form (including individual details, images or videos)

Not applicable.

Availability of data and material

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the authors upon request. We will provide the minimal dataset that would be necessary to interpret, replicate and build upon the findings reported in the article.

Competing interests

Bengt Lindholm is affiliated with Baxter Healthcare Corporation. None of the other authors declare any competing interests.

Funding

Zhimin Chen received a scholarship from the China Scholarship Council and research benefited by support from Natural Science Foundation of Zhejiang Province of China (LY20H050008) and

Zhejiang Medical and Health Science and Technology Project (2019RC037) which played an important role in the analysis and interpretation of data and in writing and revising the manuscript. Peter Stenvinkel’s research benefited by support from Swedish Medical Research Council (K2014-65X-15320-10-3), Njurfonden and Westmans Foundation which played the role of the design of the study and collection of the data for the manuscript. Baxter Novum is supported by a grant from Baxter Healthcare to Karolinska Institutet.

Authors' contributions

ZC conceived the study, analysis and interpretation of data, and drafted the manuscript; EN participated in the design of the study and interpretation of data; BL participated in the design of the study, helped to draft the manuscript, and revised it critically for important intellectual content; OH participated in the design of the study and acquisition of data; PB participated in the design of the study and acquisition of data; PS was involved in the design of the study and participated in the general supervision of the work and interpretation of data; ARQ was accountable for all aspects of the analysis of data and participated in the design of the study; JC participated in the general supervision of the work and in interpretation of data; All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Acknowledgments

We thank all patients who participated in the study and those who carried out the extensive clinical and laboratory work in the clinical investigational unit and the renal laboratory at Dept. of Renal Medicine, Karolinska University Hospital. This study was supported by a grant from Baxter Healthcare to Baxter Novum, Department of Clinical Science, Intervention and Technology, Karolinska Institutet. The study also benefited from generous support from Amgen Inc (PS), Karolinska Institutet Diabetes Theme Center (PS), Swedish Research Council (PS), Herat and Lung Foundadtio (PS), Njurfonden (PS) and Westmans Foundation (PS).