Patients with chronic renal failure are at increased risk for vascular calcification and cardiovascular complications. For example, data from the USRDS database demonstrates that 42% of all deaths among chronic dialysis patients are cardiovascular in origin with 22% of those deaths due to arrhythmias or overt acute myocardial infarction. While numerous factors including hypertension, hyperlipidemia and diabetes contribute to both renal failure and coronary disease, recent studies find that patients with CKD experience an accelerated rate of coronary calcification. Medial calcification reduces compliance of medium to large elastic arteries such as the aorta and common carotids. The resulting loss of elasticity is thought to contribute to the high prevalence of systolic hypertension and left ventricular hypertrophy (LVH) among patients with ESRD 15.