NELFCD and type 2 diabetes mellitus: Several clinical studies have confirmed that Th1-associated cytokines are upregulated in the peripheral blood from pre-diabetic or T2DM (type 2 diabetes) patients (Zeng et al., 2012; McLaughlin et al., 2014), whereas the activation of Th2 cell-mediated immunity is delayed and impaired in diabetes (Wu et al., 2011).