Variable BMI (> 27.0 kg/m2) Alcohol consumption Smoking (current or former) physical activity (intensive) Daily Fruit and vegetable consumption Sweets (little) Salt (little) Work (physically demanding) Low education Diabetes mellitus (yes) High blood pressure (yes) High cholesterol level (yes) Kuhrs et al. BMC Public Health 2012, 12:190 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/12/190 Page 5 of 9 Table 2 Distribution by sex, univariate and adjusted odds ratios and 95% confidence intervals for selected variables among ethnic Germans Males Females Cases Controls N (%a) Cases N (%a) Controls N (%a) OR N (%a) 29 (41) 22 (31) 57 (81) 3 (4) 38 (54) 25 (36) 37 (53) 56 (80) 34 (49) 16 (23) 42 (64) 23 (41) 36 (51) 14 (28) 11 (23) 80 (44) 14 (8) 108 (59) 16 (9) 135 (74) 103 (56) 124 (68) 137 (75) 76 (42) 17 (9) 100 (57) 19 (13) 89 (49) 7 (4) 39 (23) 47 (28) 34 (20) 13 (46) 1 (4) 3 (11) 0 (0) 24 (86) 9 (32) 21 (75) 18 (64) 16 (57) 5 (18) 18 (69) 3 (20) 18 (64) 1 (5) 5 (28) 4 (24) 0(0) 28 (42) 0 (0) 2 (3) 6 (9) 49 (73) 29 (43) 52 (78) 46 (69) 35 (52) 8 (12) 43 (66) 11 (23) 39 (58) 3 (5) 20 (32) 23 (37) 17 (27) univariateb multivariatec 95%CI OR 95%CI 1.74 (1.05 - 2.90) 5.61 (2.65-11.87) 3.68 (1.58-8.58) 3.22 (1.60 - 6.12) 3.07 (1.42-6.62) 0.46 (0.27 - 0.76) 0.34 (0.18-0.64) 2.53 (1.31 - 4.88) 3.29 (1.46-7.39) 3.10 (1.58 - 6.07) 2.32 (1.11-4.88) 0.29 (0.08 - 1.01) 0.64 (0.39 - 1.04) 0.50 (0.37 - 0.97) 1.13 (0.65 - 1.95) 1.06 (0.46 - 2.43) 1.26 (0.75 - 2.12) 1.17 (0.72 - 1.80) 4.53 (1.75 - 11.74) 1.71 (0.75 - 3.80) 1.35 (0.60 - 2.63) 0.93 (0.46 - 1.89) Drug treatment of hypertension (yes) Diabetes mellitus of the parents (yes) High blood pressure of the parents (yes) 18 (37) CVD of the parents (yes) 15 (33) Cancer of the parents (yes) a percentage exposed of all non-missings b based on conditional logistic regression, stratified by sex, year of birth, year of migration c based on conditional logistic regression, variables selected by backward selection method of men in the case group have ever smoked, only about 60% of men ever smoked in the control group. The overall difference between cases and controls is signifi- cant in both sexes (pm < 0.0001, pw = 0.01). Women, both in the case group and in the control group, smoked significantly less than men. Overall, the type of alcohol consumed differs signifi- cantly between cases and controls (p < 0.0001). Regarding overall consumption of alcohol, women in both cases and controls drank less alcohol than men. The alcohol con- sumption of women in the control group was only slightly lower than that of women from the case group. However, male cases drank significantly more alcohol than women and male controls. Male controls who drink alcohol consumed on average 0.3 liters of pure alcohol per month, while cases consumed more than 0.7 liters. Calculation was based on questions about the consump- tion of vodka, beer and wine assuming 37.5 vol %, 5 vol % and 12 vol % of alcohol, respectively. The differences between cases and controls regarding alcohol consump- tion at special occasions are relatively low (p = 0.85, pm = 0.58, pw = 0.05), so that the major differences in total alcohol consumption are due to a constantly higher level of alcohol consumption of the cases. There are clear differences in diet between cases and controls. Cases consumed significantly more meat and meat products than controls (95% vs. 80% daily con- sumption, p = 0.004). There are also clear differences in the consumption of chocolate and confectionery. Here, cases showed a significantly greater consumption than the controls, which also applies to salty snacks. In the case group white bread was preferred to whole grain bread while it was the opposite in the control group (64% vs. 34% white bread and 20% vs. 42% whole grain bread). BMI for controls and cases, both in women and in men, was relatively uniform, with means of 27 (controls male), 28 (control women) and 28 (cases male), and 29 (cases women) kg/m2. Approximately 90% of the cases were not at all active in sports, while this applies to about 70% of the controls. More than 8% of the controls practiced sport intensively. For cases, this was true only for 4% of the men, while none of the women answered affirmatively. The difference in intensity of the physical activities between cases and controls is also significant (p = 0.006). When asked about their profession, most of the cases and the controls claimed that their work was physically demanding. Cases had more often severe diseases than the con- trols. In all categories concerning the questions on health, the incidence of disease is higher in cases than in controls. The differences are significant for the