CRP and diabetes mellitus: To test for independent association of serum PLIN2, we performed various multivariable logistic regression analyses accounting for different parameters that were either associated with PLIN2 serum levels in the literature and/or are associated with sepsis [6,18,32,47,48], i.e., diabetes mellitus (DM) occurrence and age, BMI, norepinephrine demand and established laboratory markers for inflammation, such as C-reactive protein (CRP) and procalcitonin (PCT).