Table 2.

Baseline characteristics of study participants by CRP tertile and race

Characteristicsa	Tertile 1			Tertile 2			Tertile 3
	Caucasians (n = 170)	African Americans (n = 102)	Pb	Caucasians (n = 197)	African Americans (n = 77)	Pb	Caucasians (n = 187)	African Americans (n = 83)	Pb
Age, years	54.9 (15.4)	52.4 (15.9)	0.20	59.3 (14.2)	54.4 (14.5)	0.01	61.4 (13.4)	56.1 (13.4)	<0.01
Female, %	44.1	49.0	0.43	44.2	57.1	0.05	42.8	55.4	0.06
Hemodialysis %	66.5	90.2	<0.01	81.7	84.4	0.60	79.7	92.8	<0.01
Smoking, %	14.6	18.6	0.68	16.8	15.8	0.01	13.9	19.8	0.02
BMI, kg/m2	25.6 (4.7)	26.1 (5.7)	0.45	27.0 (6.3)	27.0 (5.7)	0.99	27.3 (7.6)	30.6 (9.8)	<0.01
Systolic BP, mmHg	148 (20)	153 (17)	0.03	150 (19)	157 (17)	0.01	147 (18)	152 (16)	0.07
Diabetes, %	54.1	47.1	0.26	55.6	55.8	0.97	51.3	66.3	0.02
Prevalent CVD, %	41.8	25.7	<0.01	45.9	33.8	0.07	58.8	41.0	<0.01
Congestive heart failure, %	36.5	36.3	0.97	50.0	54.6	0.50	56.2	49.4	0.30
Comorbidity score (0 to 3, where 3 is most severe)	1.91 (0.86)	1.77 (0.74)	0.18	1.95 (0.80)	1.82 (0.79)	0.20	2.07 (0.77)	2.16 (0.78)	0.39
Severe comorbidity, score = 3 (severe)	32.4	18.6	0.01	27.9	23.4	0.44	33.2	38.6	0.39
Cholesterol, mg/dl	191 (53)	180 (43)	0.09	193 (46)	190 (59)	0.66	186 (47)	190 (49)	0.50
CRP, mg/L	1.2 (0.9, 1.7)	1.3 (0.9, 1.6)	0.98	3.8 (3.0, 4.6)	3.8 (3.1, 4.5)	0.91	15.3 (9.2, 24.0)	14.6 (10.3, 21.4)	0.66
IL-6, pg/ml	2.6 (1.8, 3.9)	2.5 (1.9, 3.6)	0.68	3.9 (2.9, 5.6)	3.7 (2.4, 5.5)	0.78	8.1 (5.3, 15.7)	5.8 (3.8, 11.4)	0.67
Albumin, g/dl	3.7 (0.4)	3.6 (0.4)	0.53	3.6 (0.4)	3.7 (0.3)	0.32	3.6 (0.4)	3.6 (0.3)	0.64
Hemoglobin, g/dl	11.1 (1.1)	10.7(1.3)	<0.01	10.8 (1.4)	10.3 (1.3)	<0.01	10.6 (1.3)	10.1 (1.3)	<0.01

BMI, body mass index; CVD, cardiovascular disease; CRP, C-reactive protein.

^aMedian (interquartile range) for CRP, and IL-6, arithmetic mean (SD) for other continuous variables.

^bBy t test or chi-squared test.