CRP and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency: This null finding is assumed to represent a non-confounded and unbiased estimate of the association between CRP and CIMT because the existence of early stages of atherosclerosis cannot alter inherited haplotypes [15], and the potential confounders of the CRP-atherosclerosis association (e.g., obesity, smoking, physical inactivity or socioeconomic adversity) were distributed evenly among the different CRP haplotypes.