Except for an unexpected nondetection of IL-6, among the other 5 cytokines, we did not observe significant changes for the 8 wk and 12 wk HF groups when comparing to the 8 wk LF group, whereas the levels for serum IFNγ and TNF-α in the 16 wk HF animals were significantly increased when compared to the LF group (Figure 6(a)), indicating the changes of serum inflammatory cytokines were later than the changes of gut microflora, which occurred at 8 weeks of HF feeding as described above. Here, TNF is linked to hydrops fetalis.