Although we and others have found that metabolic disorders such as obesity-independent hyperglycemia and hypercholesterolemia in mice inhibit control of B. burgdorferi burden and/or tissue clearance of bacterial DNA (Toledo et al., 2015; Javid et al., 2016), female DIO mice were not hyperglycemic (Shi et al., 2006), and DIO alone does not induce hypercholesterolemia in mice without concomitant deficiencies in apolipoprotein E or low density lipoprotein receptor (Karagiannides et al., 2008). Here, APOE is linked to obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.