After adjusting for covariants/confounding factors (including age, BMI, history of smoking, history of hypertension and medication use, blood pressure parameters), activin A lost its correlation with HbA1c but retained a positive association with fasting glucose, fasting insulin and HOMA-IR, due almost entirely to very strong correlations in the T2D group (Figure 2). This evidence concerns the gene INS and type 2 diabetes mellitus.