POMC and metabolic syndrome: It has been found that agouti-related protein (AgRP, Section Neuropeptide Y and Agouti-Related Hormone Receptors and Binding Sites) stimulates the HPA axis to release ACTH, cortisol, and ACTH in response to IL-1β in adipose tissue (Xiao et al., 2003), suggesting that elevated cortisol secretion in MetS could be inhibitive to adipose tissue inflammation.