Limitations and strengths
REGRESSION
This study had several significant strengths, including the large-scale population-based design, the examination of a large number of acylcarnitines and amino acids profile, and the assessment of the predictive value of each metabolite based on different regression models to eliminate various potential confounders. This study also had some limitations that should be discussed. Because this study was cross-sectional, we could not perform a longitudinal analysis or infer causality. Although antihypertensive drugs affect plasma levels of metabolites and we adjusted for antihypertensive drugs intake accordingly, the type of antihypertensive drugs taken by participants was unclear. In addition, this study was performed on the Iranian population, and we could not generalize our results to other communities with different ethnicity.