Shorter Leukocyte Telomere Length in Relation to Presumed Nonalcoholic Fatty Liver Disease in Mexican-American Men in NHANES 1999–2002

Table 1

Telomere length, race, and interaction terms on suspected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease, NHANES 1999–2002. The table included interaction terms to assess the relationship between race/ethnicity and telomere length in relation to suspected nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (defined by having elevated ALT levels).

Variable	Odds ratio (OR)	value	Confidence interval
Female sex	1.03	0.85	0.75–1.40
Age in years	0.98	<0.01	0.97–0.99
Telomere length	1.25	0.50	0.63–2.48
Race/ethnicity
White (non- Hispanic)	1.00
Black (non-Hispanic)	0.50	0.29	0.13–1.87
Mexican-American	3.96	<0.01	1.73–9.04
Other Hispanic	0.54	0.50	0.08–3.89
Other/mixed race	22.02	0.01	2.04–237.90
Interaction terms
MexicanXtelomere	0.32	0.01	0.13–0.77
BlackXTelomere	1.36	0.70	0.38–4.87
Other Hispanic XTelomere	2.42	0.35	0.37–15.87
Other-MixedXTelomere	0.07	0.01	0.008–0.54