α-Tocopherol influences glycaemic control and miR-9-3 DNA methylation in overweight and obese women under an energy-restricted diet: a randomized, double-blind, exploratory, controlled clinical trial

Table 1 Baseline characteristics of the study population before the start of the study¹

	Synthetic VE (n = 12)	Natural VE (n = 13)	Placebo (n = 9)	Non-intervention (n = 10)	P-value	Adjusted p-value ^*
DNA methylation (%)
miR-9-1	8.7 ± 8.8	9.3 ± 10.6	12.8 ± 9.0	10.5 ± 9.2	0.637	1.000
miR-9-3	8.6 ± 7.7	2.8 ± 4.1	4.0 ± 4.1	5.7 ± 2.6	0.051	0.204
Age (years)	42.1 ± 8.5	49.3 ± 7.7	46.7 ± 11.9	40.1 ± 6.7	0.062	0.248
Body mass index (kg/m²)	29.9 ± 4.6	30.4 ± 3.8	30.0 ± 4.5	29.9 ± 3.6	0.918	1.000
Waist circumference (cm)	90.9 ± 10.8	93.0 ± 7.4	92.3 ± 10.7	96.7 ± 7.7	0.518	1.000
Waist-to-height ratio (cm)	0.6 ± 0.1	0.6 ± 0.1	0.6 ± 0.1	0.6 ± 0.1	0.795	1.000
Family income ($)	862.6 ± 317.2	1028.3 ± 652.0	1092.1 ± 1171.1	563.2 ± 447.6	0.155	0.620
Daily physical activity practice/min	10.8 ± 25.4	23.1 ± 32.8	22.2 ± 27.3	10.0 ± 21.1	0.486	1.000
Proportion of active individuals n (%)^a	2(16.7)	4(30.8)	2(22.2)	2(20.0)	0.856	1.000
Proportion Peri and postmenopausal n (%)^b	5(41.7)	9(69.2)	6(66.7)	6(60.0)	0.517	1.000

¹Data presented as mean and standard deviation or n (%). Synthetic VE contains all-rac-α-tocopherol and natural VE contains natural RRR-α-tocopherol. VE: vitamin E. ^*Adjusted p-value was calculated by Hommel procedure (modified Bonferroni test). ANOVA and a posteriori Bonferroni test were used to compare means between groups. Kruskal-Wallis test and Mann-Whitney a posteriori test were used to compare medians between groups. Pearson’s chi-square test was used to verify differences between categorical variables: ^a4 cells (50%) expected counts less than 5; ^b3 cells (37.5%) expect to count less than 5

ISSN: 1743-7075