Serum levels of IL-1β, IL-6 and TNF-α were measured using multiplex ELISA (Meso-Scale Discovery, Rockville, Maryland, USA). Samples with a coefficient of variation greater than 30% were rerun and the duplicate and the lower coefficient of variation was averaged for the analyses. hsCRP testing was performed using an automated Beckman Coulter AU5812. Serum levels of intestinal fatty acid binding protein (I-FABP), sCD163 and sCD14 were measured using commercially available ELISA assays (Quantikine ELISA kit; R&D Systems, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA). The inter-assay coefficients of variation were less than 11%. All samples were tested centrally at University of Washington (Seattle, Washington, USA). Assays were performed in duplicate and in accordance with manufacturers’ protocols. These markers were selected because they have been shown to be associated with cardiometabolic diseases or death and were likely to be produced by adipose tissue-resident immune cells [34 (link)–37 (link)].