TABLE 3.

Associations between diet-associated metabolites and Healthy Eating Index-2015 (HEI-15) categories (n = 465 participants).

HEI-15 category1	Metabolite	Coefficient (95% CI)	P value
Total fruit	Hippuric acid	0.21 (0.12, 0.30)	5.40 × 10−6
	Indole-3-propionic acid	0.16 (0.07, 0.25)	5.33 × 10−4
	Indole-3-propionic acid [3-NPH]	0.15 (0.06, 0.24)	1.04 × 10−3
	N-monomethylarginine	0.13 (0.04, 0.22)	3.19 × 10−3
	Oxalic acid	0.12 (0.03, 0.21)	9.94 × 10−3
Whole fruit	Hippuric acid	0.18 (0.09, 0.28)	8.04 × 10−5
	N-monomethylarginine	0.14 (0.05, 0.23)	1.66 × 10−3
	Indole-3-propionic acid [3-NPH]	0.14 (0.05, 0.23)	2.50 × 10−3
	Indole-3-propionic acid	0.14 (0.05, 0.23)	2.64 × 10−3
Refined grains	Nervonic acid [3-NPH]	0.14 (0.05, 0.23)	2.94 × 10−3
	Proline	−0.13 (−0.22, −0.03)	7.08 × 10−3
	Indoxyl sulfate	−0.12 (−0.21, −0.03)	1.06 × 10−2
Saturated fats	Indole-3-propionic acid	0.13 (0.04, 0.22)	5.54 × 10−3
Seafood and plant protein	Proline	−0.14 (−0.23, −0.06)	1.48 × 10−3
	Ureidopropionic acid [3-NPH]	0.14 (0.05, 0.23)	1.83 × 10−3
Total protein	Ureidopropionic acid [3-NPH]	0.14 (0.05, 0.23)	2.13 × 10−3
	Indole-3-propionic acid	−0.12 (−0.21, −0.03)	7.38 × 10−3
Total vegetables	2-Aminoadipic acid	−0.14 (−0.23, −0.05)	3.25 × 10−3
	N-monomethylarginine	0.12 (0.04, 0.21)	5.62 × 10−3
Greens and beans	N-Monomethylarginine	0.13 (0.04, 0.21)	4.94 × 10−3
	2-Aminoadipic acid	−0.12 (−0.21, −0.03)	7.45 × 10−3

Abbreviations: CI, confidence interval; 3-NPH, 3-nitrophenylhydrazine.

¹β-Coefficients represent the change in SDs of the normalized level of each metabolite per standard deviation increase in HEI-15 scores. Linear regression models were adjusted for age, gender, and race. Results are shown for diet-associated metabolites that were associated with the Healthy Purchasing Score (HPS) and concordantly associated with HEI-15 scores. All P values shown are significant at a false discovery rate < 0.10.