Besides well-established leading risk factors for heart disease such as diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and high level of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-C), N-terminal pro-brain natriuretic peptide (NT-proBNP), a cardiac marker indicative of myocardial damages, has been related to heart failure severity and insulin resistance (Palazzuoli et al., 2010; Baldassarre et al., 2017). This evidence concerns the gene NPPB and heart failure.