Four of the studies found a positive association between adherence to a pro-inflammatory diet (indicated by a higher score in the DII) and IL-6 (Almeida-de-Souza et al., 2018; Seremet Kurklu et al., 2020), IL-1, IL-2, interferon gammon and sVCAM-1 in healthy males and females (Shivappa et al., 2017), but also a positive association between DII and CRP in males and females with obesity (Lazarou et al., 2010). Here, CRP is linked to obesity due to melanocortin 4 receptor deficiency.