Thus, in a future experiment we will look whether our above-mentioned HPA axis responder and non-responder PTSD patient groups and matched controls differ in body weight, blood concentrations of appetite-regulating hormones and in the DNAm status, and expression of leukocyte POMC with the aim to, first, replicate the previous findings of (78), and, second, to test whether HPA axis regulation plays a role in the DNAm differences of POMC in PTSD and maybe also in the significantly heightened vulnerability for MetS in PTSD (Table 1). Here, POMC is linked to metabolic syndrome.