Abstract
Purpose :
Using data from the Third National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES III), our recent study indicated that dysbiotic oral microbiota, even without inducing clinically significant periodontitis, may have a significant impact on the risk for human disease and mortality, and that Porphyromonas gingivalis (P gingivalis) plays a keystone (catalyst) in the dysbiotic oral microbiota. While little is known about the relationship of human microbiota to age-related macular degeneration (AMD), it is interesting that AMD shares risk factors and etiological mechanisms with P gingivalis-related diseases including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's disease. We conducted a candidate microbe association study (CMAS) to test our hypothesis that infection with P gingivalis is associated with the occurrence of AMD.
Methods :
We related serum P gingivalis immunoglobulin G (IgG) to the odds of early AMD (n=201 cases) among subjects aged 60 years or older in a case-control study in the NHANES III. Early AMD cases were defined as the presence of either drusen (≥63 µm in diameter, equivalent to Grade 3 drusen in the Wisconsin Age-related Maculopathy Grading System) or any drusen type with areas of depigmentation or hypopigmentation of the RPE without any visibility of choroidal vessels or with increased retinal pigment in the macular area.
Results :
The multivariate-adjusted odds ratios (ORs) indicated that compared with the lowest IgG category (≤57 enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay units (EU)), the second higher category (58–119 EU) was associated with an over 30% increased odds (OR =1.33, 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.18 to 1.51) and the highest category (>119 EU) was associated with an over 60% increased odds (OR=1.61, 95% CI: 1.19 to 2.18; p for tend<0.001) of risk for early AMD.
Conclusions :
This study is the first to show a significant association between a specific microbe in periodontal microbiota and AMD. The detailed mechanism warrants further study. Our findings imply that oral microbiota play a role in retinal eye health.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2017 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Baltimore, MD, May 7-11, 2017.