Table 2.

Characteristics of participants according to tertiles of adherence to the Mediterranean Diet. Continuous variables are presented as the median and interquartile range (IQR) and categorical variables as percentages p-values obtained from the Kruskal–Wallis H test for continuous variables and Chi-squared test for categorical variables.

	Mediterranean Diet score tertiles (0–10)
	1st (n = 1008)		2nd (n = 2223)		3rd (n = 931)
	(0–3)		(4–6)		(7–10)
Variables	Median	IQR	Median	IQR	Median	IQR	p
Age (years)	58.1	10.1	57.6	10.0	57.2	10.4	0.03
Time from baseline (years)	4.0	0.4	3.9	0.5	3.9	0.7	0.002
Weight baseline (kg)	64.4	11.4	64.0	12.7	62.0	12.2	<0.001
Weight Phase 2 (kg)	65.3	14.1	64.0	12.7	63.5	12.8	<0.001
Weight change (kg)	0.9	4.5	0.9	4.1	0.9	4.1	0.40
WC baseline (cm)	76.1	12.7	73.7	10.2	71.1	7.6	<0.001
WC Phase 2 (cm)	81.5	14.6	80.0	13.3	78.7	14.0	<0.001
WC difference (cm)	5.7	8.3	5.7	7.6	5.7	7.6	0.31
BMI baseline (kg/m2)	24.0	4.5	23.4	4.2	23.0	4.0	<0.001
BMI Phase 2 (kg/m2)	24.5	4.6	23.9	4.5	23.4	4.5	<0.001
BMI change (kg/m2)	0.4	1.7	0.3	1.6	0.3	1.5	0.42
	%		%		%
Physical activitya	42.9		52.3		59.8		<0.001
HRT
Never	52.5		54.3		56.0		0.44
Current		33.2		32.1		29.5
Past	14.3		13.6		14.5
Education
No formal	19.3		17.9		16.2		<0.001
O level	35.7		30.5		24.9
A level	25.3		27.1		29.3
Degree or above	19.6		24.5		29.5
Smoking
Never	65.5		61.8		51.5		<0.001
Current	8.8		6.9		5.5
Former	25.7		31.3		39.4
Abdominal obesity baselineb	10.8		7.2		5.5		<0.001
Abdominal obesity Phase 2b	30.4		23.4		20.2		<0.001
Overweight or obese baselinec	38.3		32.4		25.7		<0.001
Overweight or obese Phase 2c	43.0		36.8		33.2		<0.001

IQR: interquartile range; WC: waist circumference; BMI: body mass index; HRT: hormone replacement therapy.

^aPhysical activity, percentage meeting recommendations.

^bAbdominal obesity WC >88 cm.

^cOverweight or obese ≥25 kg/m².