Lower blood malondialdehyde is associated with past pesticide exposure: findings in Gulf War illness and healthy controls

Table 1 Participant characteristics: demographics for matched set of cases and controls

Characteristics	Combined				1st test-set			2nd test-set			P value
Characteristics	All (n = 80)	Case (n = 40)	Ctrl (n = 40)	P	Case (n = 20)	Ctrl (n = 20)	P	Case (n = 20)	Ctrl (n = 20)	P	All	Case	Ctrl
Age (years, mean ± SD)	50 ± 7.3	50 ± 7.1	49 ± 7.5	0.88	51 ± 6.9	51 ± 7.6	0.81	48 ± 7.2	48 ± 7.5	0.98	0.14	0.23	0.38
Male (%)	93	93	93	1.0	90	90	1.0	95	95	1.0	0.40	0.55	0.55
Married (%)	54	68	40	0.014	65	35	0.058	70	45	0.11	0.50	0.74	0.52
Ethnicity (%)^a
Caucasian	55	55	55	1.0	70	70	1.0	40	40	1.0	0.007	0.057	0.057
Hispanic	15	15	15	1.0	0	0	1.0	30	30	1.0	< 0.001	0.008	0.008
African American	20	20	20	1.0	25	25	1.0	15	15	1.0	0.26	0.43	0.43
Asian	7.5	7.5	7.5	1.0	0	0	1.0	15	15	1.0	0.011	0.072	0.072
Native American	2.5	2.5	2.5	1.0	5.0	5.0	1.0	0.0	0.0	1.0	0.15	0.31	0.31

The unmatched 81st participant (case) was an unmarried, African American male in his 60 s. P values are from t-tests of difference in mean (continuous variables) and chi-squared tests (categorical variables)
Ctrl control, SD standard deviation, MDA malondialdehyde
^a Designations for specific ethnicities are based on the matched half, where half-matches were used. The first-set (batch) evaluated MDA in the first 20 case–control pairs. The second-set (batch) evaluated the remaining participants

ISSN: 2054-9369