CXCL8 and Hypertension: However, recent studies have connected increasing Prevotella abundance and certain strains to metabolic syndrome, obesity, hypertension, insulin resistance, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), and low-grade systemic inflammation (Zhu et al., 2013; Pedersen et al., 2016; Madhogaria et al., 2022) due to augmentation mucosal helper T-cell (Th17) immune responses and stimulation epithelial cells to produce interleukin-1 (IL-1), IL-8, IL-6 and IL-23 (Larsen, 2017).