Furthermore, there has been no clinically significant difference between BNP and NT-proBNP in terms of the diagnostic and prognostic values, except for the longer half-life time of NT-proBNP (72 h) as opposed to 4 h for BNP and that NT-pro-BNP levels are less affected by obesity [9,26]. This evidence concerns the gene NPPB and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.