Table 3. Differences between plasma betaine quintiles.

	p	Q1	Q2	Q3	Q4	Q5
Pl betaine (µmol/L)	..	28.9	37.6	45.3	54.2	70.0
Age (years)	0.46	66	68	68	68	70
BMI	0.002	28.0	27.2	26.4	26.5	25.3
Left ventricular ejection fraction	0.14	60	58	60	60	57
Pl creatinine (µmol/L)	0.31	99	90	100	92	90
Pl urea (mmol/L)	0.28	6.5	5.9	6.5	6.7	6.5
Pl homocysteine (µmol/L)	0.12	13.5	12.3	12.6	12.5	12.3
Pl Non-HDL cholesterol (mmol/L)	<0.001	3.38	2.98	3.22	2.97	2.64
Pl NT-proBNP (pmol/L)	0.002	71	46	45	71	101
With diabetes (%)	0.18	15	24	18	17	11

Median data in subsets of study population based on quintiles of gender-adjusted plasma (pl) betaine concentrations from Q1 (lowest quintile) to Q5 (highest quintile), with significance (p) for difference between quintiles (Kruskal-Wallis one way analysis of variance on ranks). Significant (p<0.05) differences between quintiles marked in bold. “With diabetes” row shows percentage of subjects in each plasma betaine quintile who had diabetes.