Lack of significant differences in Bcl-2 gene expression between groups, as observed in the present study, might be due to (i) the effects of transcription factors other than p53 on Bcl-2 expression (Kutuk and Basaga, 2006[20]; Zhou et al., 2018[39]), (ii) the possible confounding effects of other transcription factors (Yin et al., 2018[38]), (iii) oxidative stress status in EAT (Liu et al., 2016[23]) and (iv) irrelevancy of Bcl-2 expression to the presence of atherosclerosis (Kutuk and Basaga, 2006[20]). This evidence concerns the gene TP53 and atherosclerosis.