QUANTIFICATION AND STATISTICAL ANALYSIS

To examine the differences between groups, we used Student’s t test (2 tailed) or Wilcoxon’s rank-sum test for continuous variables, and χ2 test for categorical variables. Rank-based nonparametric Kruskal-Wallis test was used for non-normally distributed data. In the box-whisker plot, the upper and lower boundaries of the box represent the 25th and 75th%iles, the median is marked by a horizontal line inside the box, and whiskers represent 10%ile and 90%ile of measured values. Categorical data are presented as n (%). Hazard ratio (HR) for MACE at 3-year follow-up and corresponding 95% confidence intervals (CI) were estimated using both univariable (unadjusted) and multivariable (adjusted) Cox models. Kaplan–Meier analysis with Cox proportional hazards regression was used for time-to-event analysis to determine HR and 95% CI for MACE. Adjustments were made for individual traditional cardiac risk factors including age, sex, HDL, LDL, triglycerides, smoking, diabetes mellitus, systolic blood pressure, and high-sensitivity C-reactive protein level. All data are presented as mean ± SD or SEM, as indicated. Statistical tests used to compare conditions are indicated in figure legends. GraphPad PRISM version 8.0 and R 3.4.2 (Vienna, Austria, 2017) were used for generation of graphs and statistics.