Other outcome measures
All participants attended three visits during the study (baseline, 3 months and 6 months) with collection of fasting blood samples for measuring lipids, insulin, HbA1c, fasting plasma glucose and blood-ketones as reported [Serum hsCRP was measured in duplicates by an in-house ELISA using commercially available monoclonal antibodies and reagents (Biotechne, R&D Systems, MN, USA) according to the manufacturers instructions. The limit of detection was 0.05 µg/L and the intra- and inter-assay CVs were below 15%. Circulating IL-6 was measured in singlets on fasting EDTA plasma by the human high-sensitive IL-6 ELISA assay essentially as described (R&D Systems, Abingdon, UK). Mean CV% between runs was 6.9% (EDTA plasma pool, level 8.1 pg/ml). CV% of assay controls were 20% (level 0.5 pg/ml), 12.6%, (level 3.2 pg/ml) and 18.5% (level 5.9 pg/ml).