Table 1.

Participant characteristics by CRP categories

	All Participants	<=3 mg/L Normal CRP	>3 mg/L High CRP	P trend+
	N=3646	N=3267	N=376
Age (years) mean	48	48	50	<0.001
Energy Intake (kcal/day) mean	1931.2	1932.1	1923.0	0.74
BMI* (Kg/m2) mean	23.3	23.1	24.9	<0.001
WHR** mean	0.89	0.89	0.91	<0.001
Waist circumference (cm) mean	83.7	83.2	88.5	<0.001
HDL cholesterol mmol/l	1.26	1.28	1.16	<0.001
Triglycerides mmol/l	1.90	1.80	2.69	<0.001
Current smoker (%)	75.5	75.7	75.5	0.94
Current alcohol drinker (%)	37.7	37.3	41.2	0.13
Tea consumption (%)	72.6	70.5	68.6	0.45
Exercise participation (%)	21.5	21.3	23.4	0.34
Education (%)
None	3.1	19.2	20.0	0.16
Elementary	38.4	41.7	44.4
High School	40.8	29.3	29.4
College	17.7	9.7	6.1
Income Level (%)
<10000 Yuan/year	19.3	19.2	3.5	0.14
10000-19999 Yuan/year	42.0	41.7	43.1
20000-29999 Yuan/year	29.3	29.3	35.6
>30000Yuan/year	9.3	9.7	17.8
Occupation (%)
Professional	20.1	19.8	22.7	<0.001
Clerical	22.6	22.5	24.0
Manual workers	57.3	57.7	53.3
CVD*** (%)	4.0	3.6	8.0

^*BMI: body mass index

^**WHR: waist to hip ratio

^***CVD cardiovascular disease.

⁺P trend calculated by chi square test for the prevalences of population characteristics, by ANOVA test for continuous variables and by Kruskal Wallis test for age (as age was not normally distributed).