These dose–response relationships between the amount of weight loss and treatment benefits were observed when body weight change was analyzed both as an ordinal (Fig. 3) and as a continuous variable, after adjusting for age, sex, NYHA class, history of atrial fibrillation and coronary artery disease, baseline CRP and NTproBNP at baseline (Table 2). This evidence concerns the gene CRP and atrial fibrillation.