Whole blood collected at baseline (t0), after the intervention (t1: week 2 for the dietary intervention group and week 1 for the banana beverage intervention group) and 4 weeks later (t2, follow-up), was subjected to 48-h ex vivo stimulation using the following stimuli: C. albicans hyphae (1 x 10 7 ml -1 ), E. coli LPS (10 ng ml -1 ), MTB (5 g ml -1 ), S. enteritidis (1 x 10 6 ml -1 ), S. aureus (1 x 10 6 ml -1 ) and the TLR3 agonist poly(I:C) (50 g ml -1 ). Cytokine concentrations were measured in the supernatants at three time points for participants in the WD ( n = 21), AHD ( n = 22) and fermented beverage ( n = 22) study arms using ELISA. Statistical analysis was carried out using an LMM for each comparison with a two-sided hypothesis test. Fixed effects included time point, baseline BMI, age and physical activity level, while participant ID was included as a random effect. a , c , e , Arrow plots depicting statistical comparisons between time points for switch to WD ( a ), switch to AHD ( c ) and fermented beverage ( e ): after the intervention (t1) versus baseline (t0), follow-up (t2) versus after the intervention (t1), and follow-up (t2) versus baseline (t0). The arrows indicate the direction of change compared to the earlier time point in each comparison (up or down); the fill color represents the log 2 paired fold change, indicating the size and direction of change (red to blue, with up or down changes shown by the colors). The asterisks indicate the significance level of the BenjaminiHochberg-adjusted P value (* P < 0.05, ** P < 0.01, *** P < 0.001, **** P < 0.0001). b , d , f , Combined box and line plots with the group trend line indicating concentrations of measured parameters at the three time points (switch to WD ( b ), switch to AHD ( d ) and fermented beverage ( f )). Lines are grouped per participant. Cytokine production is presented as the log 2 concentrations of IFNg, IL-10, IL-1b, IL-6 and TNF in the supernatant. In all box plots, the box line defines the median level, the hinges depict the 25th and 75th centiles and the whiskers extend to 1.5 times the IQR. a Change in control group.
