Table 4.

Relationship between dietary iron intake from the last assessment at baseline and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus from the quartile model*

Iron intake from the last assessment at baseline	Mean iron intake, mg/day	Parsimonious model		Fully-adjusted model
		Hazard ratio (95% CI)	P-value	Hazard ratio (95% CI)	P-value
Quartile 1	8.1	Ref	-	Ref	-
Quartile 2	11.8	0.87 (0.74, 1.03)	0.11	0.96 (0.81, 1.13)	0.61
Quartile 3	14.8	0.77 (0.65, 0.92)	< 0.01	0.83 (0.68, 1.00)	0.06
Quartile 4	20.3	0.86 (0.70, 1.04)	0.12	0.97 (0.77, 1.22)	0.79

* Quartile model evaluated the association between dietary iron intake as single-point data (the last dietary assessment at baseline) and risk of type 2 diabetes mellitus, in which we used the lowest quartile with the mean dietary iron intake of 8.1 mg/day as the reference group

Parsimonious model: adjusted for age, sex, BMI, and total energy

Fully-adjusted model: further adjusted for ethnicity, residence area, smoking status, alcohol drinking status, income, Townsend deprivation index, physical activity, history of hypertension, hypercholesterolemia, cardiovascular disease, glycated haemoglobin, and dietary intake of carbohydrates, protein, magnesium, fiber, and saturated fat