Polyunsaturated fatty acids in serum and homocysteine concentrations in Japanese men and women: a cross-sectional study

Table 1 Characteristics of the subjects according to tertile of n-3 PUFA and n-6 PUFA in serum cholesterol ester

		n-3 PUFA				n-6 PUFA
	T1 (2.74)¹	T2 (4.01)	T3 (5.79)	P-trend²	T1 (58.36)	T2 (62.58)	T3 (66.18)	P-trend
No. of subjects	166	165	165		166	165	165
Age (y, mean ± SD)	37.9 ± 9.3	41.8 ± 10.5	47.7 ± 9.8	<0.001	47.9 ± 10.1	41.4 ± 10.4	38.1 ± 8.9	<0.001
Sex (male,%)	52.4	54.6	68.5	<0.001	79.5	57.0	38.8	<0.001
Workplace (A,%)³	31.3	31.5	29.7	0.75	29.5	31.5	31.5	0.69
Body Mass Index (kg/m², mean ± SD)	21.9 ± 3.3	22.5 ± 3.9	23.0 ± 3.2	0.01	23.5 ± 3.5	22.3 ± 3.5	21.6 ± 3.2	<0.001
Current smoking (%)	21.1	28.5	32.7	0.02	43.4	26.1	12.7	<0.001
Alcohol consumption (≥20 g of ethanol/d,%)	28.9	40.0	58.2	<0.001	64.5	35.2	27.3	<0.001
Occupational physical activity (sedentary,%)	80.1	77.6	83.6	0.12	81.9	84.2	75.2	0.42
Non-occupational physical activity (≥5 MET-h/wk,%)	27.7	29.7	30.3	0.60	36.8	30.3	20.6	0.001
Serum folate (ng/ml)	3.4 (2.6, 4.9)⁴	3.8 (2.7, 5.0)	4.3 (3.1, 5.8)	0.002	3.4 (2.7, 4.7)	3.8 (2.7, 5.7)	4.0 (3.0, 5.3)	0.005
Dietary intake of vitamin B6
(mg/1000 kcal, mean ± SD)	0.6 ± 0.2	0.7 ± 0.2	0.7 ± 0.1	0.18	0.6 ± 0.2	0.7 ± 0.2	0.7 ± 0.1	0.28
Dietary intake of vitamin B12 (μg/1000 kcal)	3.9 (2.8, 5.0)	4.1 (3.1, 5.2)	5.1 (4.0, 6.2)	<0.001	4.8 (3.6, 6.1)	4.3 (3.0, 5.9)	4.0 (3.0, 5.0)	<0.001

Abbreviations: T Tertile, PUFA Polyunsaturated fatty acids, SD Standard deviation, MET Metabolic equivalent.
¹Median percentage of n-3 PUFA or n-6 PUFA (all such values).
²P-trend values were based on the Mantel-Haenszel chi-square test for categorical variables and on linear regression analysis for continuous variables,with ordinal numbers 0–2 assigned to tertile categories of each fatty acid.
³A, workplace surveyed in July.
⁴Median (interquartile range) of serum folate and dietary intake of vitamin B12.

ISSN: 1743-7075