When compared with the normal group, the obesity and the obese diabetes groups had significantly higher levels of BMI, FPI, HOMA-IR, alanine aminotransferase (ALT), AREG, serum uric acid (SUA) and triglyceride (TG) (all P < 0.05, Table 1, Figs 1 and 2). The gene discussed is GPT; the disease is obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.