C3 and obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency: [31] multivariate analysis of the metabolic syndromescore and clinical and therapeutic variableswas used to obtain statistical significance for age,ESR, complement C3, creatinine, and intravenouscorticosteroid therapy. These authors note that corticosteroidtherapy affects the worsening of arterialhypertension, dyslipidemia, obesity in patients withSLE, and especially in patients with lupus nephritisand lupus CNS, as the most severe manifestations ofSLE, bearing in mind that intravenous doses of corticosteroidsare applied much more often [31].