Fig. 4

Effect of interventions on plasma ferritin concentration (μg/L) at 30 days after start of intervention, by subgroups of iron status and haemoglobin concentration class at baseline. Inflammation was defined to be absent when plasma CRP concentration was ≤5 mg/L and plasma α ₁-acid glycoprotein concentration was ≤1.0 g/L, and present when either plasma CRP concentration was >5 mg/L or plasma α ₁-acid glycoprotein concentration was >1.0 g/L. Group geometric means were obtained by exponentiation of results of one-way ANOVA. Intervention effects were adjusted for stratified block design as well as plasma concentrations of ferritin and soluble transferrin receptor at baseline (both log-transformed continuous variables). Exponentiation of group differences with log-transformed outcomes resulted in associations being expressed as relative differences. GSD geometric standard deviation. The p values indicate the two-sided probability that group effects are as different as observed or more extreme when assuming that they are identical