Blood glucose was measured during blood sampling with a hand-held glucometer (Freestyle Freedom Light, Abbott Laboratories, Lake Bluff, IL, USA). Plasma insulin was measured by ELISA (Chrystal Chem Inc., Downers Grove, IL, USA). Plasma cholesterol and plasma triglyceride levels were measured in freshly prepared plasma using enzymatic assays (CHOD-PAP and GPO-PAP, respectively; Roche Diagnostics, Almere, The Netherlands). Plasma TIMP-1 was measured in terminal plasma by ELISA (R&D systems, Abingdon, UK). All these assays were performed according to the manufacturers’ instructions. Extracellular matrix turnover markers PRO-C3 and PRO-C4 for type 3 and type 4 collagen formation and C4M and C6M for metalloproteinase-mediated degradation of type 4 and type 6 collagen, respectively [47 (link),48 (link),49 (link),50 (link)], were measured in terminal serum using competitive ELISAs (Nordic Bioscience, Herlev, Denmark).
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