Low serum levels of ghrelin are associated with gallstone disease

Table 1 Demographic, anthropometric, biochemical and diet variables between cases and controls

Variable	(median min–max)
	Cases		Controls		P-value1
	n = 38		n = 112		Mann–Whitney U test
Age (yr)	52.5	9-80	43.5	18-76	0.002
BMI (kg/m2)	28.1	17-55	25	19-57	0.004
Body fat (%)	34.1	20-45	27.9	11-47	< 0.0001
Insulin (U/L)	6.2	2-18	5.2	2-51	0.11
HOMA-IR	1.4	0.4-4.8	1.2	0.4-14.1	0.07
Homocysteine (μmol/L)	11.0	5-25	9.0	2-20	0.007
Total cholesterol (mmol/L)	4.99	2.48-8.28	5.07	3-8.51	0.80
HDL-cholesterol (mmol/L)	0.98	0.59-1.97	1.09	0.57-2.02	0.10
LDL-cholesterol (mmol/L)	3.1	1.47-5.43	3.31	0.39-6.28	0.50
Triacylglycerol (mmol/L)	1.6	0.64-4.54	1.42	0.46-3.85	0.18
Energy (kJ)	7624	4743-11417	8323	3043-78803	0.06
Diet proteins (%)	16	12-24	16	10-123	0.93
Diet lipids (%)	31	22-46	34	13-500	0.05
Diet carbohydrates (%)	53	34-64	50	13-68	0.05
Ghrelin (ng/L)	660	129-1267	682	117-1467	0.71
Physical activity (yes) [n (%)]	20 (52.6)		65 (58.0)		0.581
Metabolic syndrome [n (%)]	15 (39.5)		18 (16.1)		0.0061

¹ Fisher’s exact test (two-tailed).