TNF and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency: Interestingly, recent research has proposed that BMI and EFs may be indirectly associated via obesity-induced activation of innate immunity as a result of a low-grade inflammation process (e.g., abnormal adipokine and cytokine secretion such as TNF-alpha and interferon [81,82,83,84,85,86,87], as furthered by a newly proposed model, the immunologic model of self-regulatory failure [81,83,88].