This association was statistically confirmed when considering only those children affirming a family history of obesity, with the lack of such a relationship between PSMA3 polymorphisms and obesity in the subjects denying obese first- and second-degree relatives indicating that these nucleotide changes may play a permissive or predisposing, as opposed to an obligatory, role in the etiology of obesity. The gene discussed is PSMA3; the disease is obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.