Descriptive and outcome statistics
SECONDARY
Data was checked for normality and presented with mean and standard deviation or median and interquartile range whenever appropriate. Descriptive data are presented with both measures with a marking of whether data was considered as normally distributed or not. Categorical variables are presented with frequencies and proportions.Primary and secondary aims were investigated by comparing absolute changes between groups. Also, within group changes were analyzed, hence data was stratified by group. The results were based on observed cases and measures only. Hence, no data was imputed.Unadjusted analyses were performed with t-test or ANOVA for normally distributed variables. Multiple comparisons were handled with Bonferroni correction. Wilcoxon test and Kruskal–Wallis were used as non-parametric test. To perform analysis of the inflammatory marker CRP, levels that were denoted at “< 1” from the laboratory was assigned a value of 0.5.All analyses other than sample-size calculations were performed using SAS statistical software (version 9.4, Cary, North Carolina). All P-values presented were two-sided and a p-value less than 0.050 was denoted statistically significant.