For the latter, however, our findings showed that heart failure patients with cachexia tended to have higher levels of brain natriuretic peptide, which represents the severity of heart failure, than those without cachexia, albeit not significantly (cachexia group: 714.25 [363.50–1241.20], non-cachexia group: 418.10 [245.55–829.32], P = 0.06). The gene discussed is NPPB; the disease is heart failure.