Table 1.

Baseline Parameters of 681 Health Aging and Body Composition Participants That Were Included in This Study

Parameter	EDIs (N = 340), mean (SD)	AfAms (N = 341), mean (SD)
Age (y)	73.7 (2.9)	73.6 (2.8)
BMI (kg/m2)	26.7 (4.3)	28.9 (5.3)
	N (%)	N (%)
Female participants	171 (50.3)	164 (48.1)
Smoking	189 (55.6)	190 (55.7)
LTL	Median	Median
qPCR (T/S ratio)	1.09	1.12
Southern blots (kb)*	6.01	6.22

Notes: AfAms = African Americans; BMI = body mass index; EDIs = European descent individuals; LTL = leukocyte telomere length; qPCR = quantitative PCR.

^*Measured in DNA from the second year of data collection.