Table 1.

Baseline characteristics according to body mass index in 543 apparently healthy Caucasian women in the Women’s Health Study

Body mass index (kg/m²)
Characteristics	Normal (<25)	Overweight (25-<30)	Obese (≥30)	P
Age ^* (IQR)	63(57-68)	64(59-69)	61(57-65)	0.03
Age at menopause ^* (IQR)	49 (45-52)	49 (44-52)	49 (45-52)	0.75
Total fat ^** (IQR)	57.5 (50.0-64.9)	58.6 (50.1-65.3)	59.9 (53.3-69.7)	0.12
Saturated fat ^** (IQR)	19.4 (16.1-22.7)	19.6 (17.0-22.7)	20.6 (18.3-24.8)	0.06
Hormone use (%)				0.004
Never	32.1	31.3	46.0
Past	19.5	27.8	28.4
Current	48.5	40.9	25.7
Smoking status (%)				0.041
Never	41.3	44.3	48.7
Past	35.8	38.6	36.5
Current	22.9	17.1	14.9
Alcohol (%)				0.05
Rarely/never	43.3	46.0	62.2
1-3 drinks/month	13.7	17.1	10.8
1-6 drinks/week	30.4	23.9	23.0
≥ 1 drink/day	12.6	13.1	4.1
Exercise (%)				0.001
Rarely/never	35.5	35.8	54.1
< 1/week	19.1	18.2	23.0
1-3/week	28.7	36.9	17.6
≥ 4/week	16.7	9.1	5.4
Total cholesterol ≥ 240 mg/dl	50.0	36.1	13.9	0.28
Hypertension % ^†	39.8	39.8	20.5	< 0.0001
Diabetes %	17.7	47.1	35.3	0.003
Genotype distribution
rs2234693 ^‡
TT	54.4	27.2	18.3	0.10
TC	52.5	34.0	13.5
CC	54.9	36.9	8.2
rs 9340799				0.65
AA	52.5	31.5	16.0
AG	55.1	32.7	12.2
GG	54.4	35.4	10.1

IQR is interquartile range (25 th to 75 th percentile).

^**

All macronutrients (mg/day) were adjusted for total energy intake.

^†

Hypertension defined as physician diagnosis of hypertension or reported BP of >140 mmHg systolic or >90 mmHg diastolic blood pressure. P values were obtained from Kruskal-Wallis (nonparametric) for continuous variables and Chi-square for categorical variables. Exact P-values were considered for genotype association.

^‡

rs 2234693 genotype distribution was in Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium.