Table 2.

The mediating role of BMI in the associations between vegetarian diet and inflammatory biomarkers.

	Path	Effect	β	95% CIa
C-reactive protein
Strict vegetarian	c	Total	−0.680	−1.071, −0.290**
	c’	Direct	−0.395	−0.795, 0.000*
	ab	Indirect	−0.285	−0.425, −0.170**
Lacto-ovo vegetarian	c	Total	−0.356	−0.601, −0.100**
	c’	Direct	−0.118	−0.366, 0.130
	ab	Indirect	−0.238	−0.337, −0.160**
Partial vegetarian	c	Total	−0.316	−0.627, −0.040*
	c’	Direct	−0.152	−0.450, 0.120
	ab	Indirect	−0.164	−0.259, −0.080**
IL-6
Strict vegetarian	c	Total	−0.009	−0.477, 0.590
	c’	Direct	0.103	−0.368, 0.680
	ab	Indirect	−0.112	−0.254, −0.020*
Lacto-ovo vegetarian	c	Total	0.016	−0.258, 0.290
	c’	Direct	0.090	−0.185, 0.350
	ab	Indirect	−0.073	−0.179, −0.020*
Partial vegetarian	c	Total	0.160	−0.205, 0.530
	c’	Direct	0.203	−0.162, 0.570
	ab	Indirect	−0.043	−0.140, 0.000*
IL-10
Strict vegetarian	c	Total	−0.335	−1.365, 0.330
	c’	Direct	−0.295	−1.294, 0.360
	ab	Indirect	−0.040	−0.197, 0.080
Lacto-ovo vegetarian	c	Total	−0.320	−0.894, 0.230
	c’	Direct	−0.295	−0.874, 0.250
	ab	Indirect	−0.025	−1.230, 0.050
Partial vegetarian	c	Total	−0.371	−0.916, 0.170
	c’	Direct	−0.356	−0.891, 0.190
	ab	Indirect	−0.015	−0.097, 0.030
TNF-αb
			OR	95% CI
Strict vegetarian	c	Total	0.098	−0.904, 1.052
	c’	Direct	0.035	−0.950, 1.011
	ab	Indirect	0.063	−0.098, 0.315
Lacto-ovo vegetarian	c	Total	−0.061	−0.632, 0.518
	c’	Direct	−0.099	−0.686, 0.499
	ab	Indirect	0.039	−0.062, 0.191
Partial vegetarian	c	Total	−0.326	−1.026, 0.370
	c’	Direct	−0.349	−1.056, 0.339
	ab	Indirect	−0.023	−0.029, 0.154

Path c represent the total effect of vegetarian diet on inflammatory biomarker in standard regression coefficient (ß), which reflect the change in the biomarker per a specific vegetarian diet as compared to a non-vegetarian diet. Path ab represent the indirect effect, which is the portion of total effect that is explained by BMI. Path c’ represent the direct effect, which is the residual effect of vegetarian diet on inflammatory biomarker controlling for BMI. All regressions were adjusted for age, gender, race, education, cigarette smoke, alcohol use, physical activity, and use of NSAIDs and statins.

^aConfidence intervals were calculated using Bca method with 10,000 iterations. P-values were permutation p-values.

^*p<0.05

^**p<0.001

^bFor TNF-α, effect estimates are odds ratios of different vegetarian diets having a higher TNF-α level, relative to the non-vegetarian diet.