Table 6. Variables influencing carotid intima-media thickness (stepwise analyses after fivefold cross validation)^*.

Rank	Variable	k-fold r2	p value
1	Age	0.44	< 0.0001
2	Systolic blood pressure	0.45	0.0001
3	Visceral adiposity index	0.45	0.0035
4	High-sensitive C-reactive protein	0.46	0.14
5	Diastolic blood pressure	0.46	0.12
6	Glycated haemoglobin	0.46	0.31
7	Insulin resistance	0.46	0.50
8	Smoking	0.45	0.49
9	Low density lipoprotein-cholesterol	0.45	0.80

^*＝not adjusted for gender, BMI, waist circumference, triglycerides and HDL-cholesterol (already included in visceral adiposity index)