TNF and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency: The common pharmacological mechanism of PTX was regarded as the inhibition of tumour necrosis factor-α (TNF-α) synthesis18, and because (1) TNF-α plays a critical role in obesity and IR19 and (2) PTX can inhibit TNF-α synthesis, several small clinical trials have been performed to verify the effectiveness of PTX in NAFLD treatment20.