Supplementary table 2: Component loadings derived using Principal Component Analysis for the identification of dietary patterns.

1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6
Low fat dairy / 0.009 / 0.350 / -0.597 / 0.032 / -0.017 / 0.241
Full fat dairy and cheeses / 0.325 / -0.194 / 0.450 / 0.354 / 0.428 / 0.125
Fruits / 0.674 / 0.274 / -0.127 / -0.103 / -0.118 / -0.013
Vegetables / 0.291 / 0.692 / -0.223 / 0.118 / 0.214 / 0.191
Legumes / 0.284 / 0.434 / 0.148 / -0.474 / 0.393 / -0.108
Whole-wheat products / -0.066 / 0.117 / -0.134 / -0.519 / 0.216 / 0.473
Refined cereals / -0.154 / 0.039 / -0.123 / 0.023 / 0.834 / -0.008
Nuts / 0.752 / -0.072 / -0.001 / 0.070 / -0.109 / 0.028
Herbal drinks / 0.741 / 0.125 / 0.114 / -0.120 / 0.108 / -0.006
Olive oil / 0.005 / -0.064 / 0.043 / 0.013 / -0.026 / 0.848
Alcohol / 0.160 / 0.041 / 0.586 / 0.071 / -0.172 / 0.370
Poultry and fish / 0.036 / 0.820 / 0.186 / -0.019 / -0.097 / -0.143
Red meat / -0.139 / 0.293 / 0.752 / 0.004 / -0.032 / -0.015
Coffee / -0.102 / 0.137 / 0.016 / 0.797 / 0.141 / 0.026
% cumulative variance / 16.9 / 29.5 / 39.3 / 48.2 / 56.9 / 64.5

Higher absolute values of the loadings indicate that the food item or food group is correlated with the respective component. Numbers in bold indicate absolute loadings greater than 0.4.

Dietary pattern 1: Fruits, nuts and herbal drinks; Dietary pattern 2: Legumes, vegetables, poultry and fish; Dietary pattern 3: Low consumption of low fat dairy, high consumption of full fat dairy, cheeses, alcohol and red meat; Dietary pattern 4: Coffee and low intake of whole wheat products and legumes; Dietary pattern 5: Refined cereals and full fat dairy, cheeses; Dietary pattern 6: whole-wheat products and olive oil.