Table 5.

Association of carotenoids and α-tocopherol with age groups after adjusting for covariables.

	B	95% CI	p	(η2)	Difference (µmol/L) 1	Difference (%) 2
(SR) Lycopene
Age groups 3	−0.028	−0.032, −0.023	<0.001	0.068	−0.047	-6.7
Age groups 4	−0.026	−0.030, −0.022	<0.001	0.070	−0.044	-6.3
Age groups 5	−0.027	−0.031, −0.023	<0.001	0.080	−0.046	-6.5
(LN) α-Tocopherol
Age groups 3	0.024	0.019, 0.029	<0.001	0.044	0.667	2.4
Age groups 4	0.023	0.018, 0.028	<0.001	0.041	0.636	2.3
Age groups 5	0.018	0.014, 0.022	<0.001	0.035	0.486	1.7
(LN) α-Carotene
Age groups 3	−0.038	−0.053, −0.023	<0.001	0.012	−0.005	-3.8
Age groups 4	−0.045	−0.059, −0.031	<0.001	0.018	−0.006	-4.4
Age groups 5	−0.050	−0.063, −0.037	<0.001	0.029	−0.007	-4.8
(LN) β-Cryptoxanthin
Age groups 3	0.036	0.019, 0.053	<0.001	0.008	0.007	3.6
Age groups 4	0.031	0.015, 0.047	<0.001	0.007	0.006	3.0
Age groups 5	0.012	−0.002, 0.027	0.102	0.001	0.002	1.1

¹ Mean difference per age group of back-transformed data (µmol/L) considering the intercept of each model; ² Differences in biomarker concentrations as a percentage (%) of the geometric means (lycopene: 0.701 µmol/L; α-tocopherol: 27.85 µmol/L; β-cryptoxanthin: 0.203 µmol/L; α-carotene: 0.139 µmol/L); ³ Linear regression analysis with age groups (n = 8) as a covariate; ⁴ Multiple linear regression with age groups (n = 8) as a covariate and country and season as co-factors; ⁵ Multiple linear regression with age group, cholesterol, BMI, frequency of dietary habits (fruit, vegetables, juice, and meat per week), use of vitamin supplements, gender, and smoking status as covariates, and country and season as co-factors. (SR) square root transformed; (LN) logarithmic transformed. Regression coefficient B represents the increase/decrease in the respective compound for each multiple linear regression model.