However, the levels of plasma insulin and HOMA-IR in obese men were greater than in HCs; in particular, the mean value of HOMA-IR in the obese group was three times more than that in the HCs, which indicated that the islet function of obese subjects in our study was altered, namely due to insulin resistance (Wallace et al., 2004; Chiu et al., 2007). This evidence concerns the gene INS and Insulin resistance.