Table 3. Correlations (r) between markers of systemic inflammation with and without adjustments for the covariates^*.

	CRP	SAA	Fib	HPTG	AGP	z-score
Unadjusted
CRP	1.000	0.644‡	0.463‡	0.517‡	0.419‡	0.830‡
SAA	0.644‡	1.000	0.363‡	0.407‡	0.334‡	0.749‡
Fib	0.463‡	0.363‡	1.000	0.361‡	0.332‡	0.687‡
HPTG	0.517‡	0.407‡	0.361‡	1.000	0.387‡	0.729‡
AGP	0.419‡	0.334‡	0.332‡	0.387‡	1.000	0.674‡
z-score	0.830‡	0.749‡	0.687‡	0.729‡	0.674‡	1.000
Adjusted
CRP	1.000	0.492‡	0.353‡	0.290‡	0.279‡	0.689‡
SAA	0.492‡	1.000	0.212†	0.254‡	0.232†	0.648‡
Fib	0.353‡	0.212†	1.000	0.267‡	0.270‡	0.654‡
HPTG	0.290‡	0.254‡	0.267‡	1.000	0.280‡	0.645‡
AGP	0.279‡	0.232†	0.270‡	0.280‡	1.000	0.653‡
z-score	0.689‡	0.648‡	0.654‡	0.645‡	0.653‡	1.000

All individual inflammatory markers and composite z-scores were logarithmically transformed to achieve normality in distribution before statistical analyses.

^*Body mass index, systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, HDL cholesterol, triglycerides and glucose levels. Composite z-scores were calculated as described in the Materials and Methods section.

^†p<0.001;

^‡p<0.0001

Abbreviations: AGP, α-acyl glycoprotein, CRP, C-reactive protein; Fib, fibrinogen; HPTG, haptoglobin; SAA, serum amyloid A.