Abstract
Purpose :
To determine the association of a healthy alternative Mediterranean diet index score to the risk of developing late age-related macular degeneration (AMD).
Methods :
A diet index based on the alternative Mediterranean diet was created using the
baseline dietary questionnaire of participants of the Age-Related Eye Disease Study. The association of the diet with the development of any geographic atrophy (GA), central geographic atrophy (CGA), neovascular AMD (NV), and the combination of CGA or NV was tested using proportional hazards regression analyses, adjusted for age, sex, smoking, education, body mass index, and AMD category. We calculated hazard ratios (HR) to compare the higher quintile of the index (healthier diet) vs. the lower quintile. We also evaluated the interaction of the dietary index with CFH (rs1061170) and ARMS2 (rs10490924).
Results :
In the overall analyses of 3784 participants, 2466 had genetic data available. The table shows the percentage of participants progressing to late AMD in quintiles 1 and 5 and the hazard ratio for quintile 5 vs. 1. The overall results suggest that adhering to the alternative Mediterranean diet is of benefit for CGA (P=.03) and for those with 2 risk alleles of ARMS2 (P=.02) but not for CFH (P=.38). Participants with 2 risk alleles for ARMS2 also had a lower risk of developing any GA (P=.01). The HR for NV for participants with 2 risk alleles of CFH suggest an increased risk for quintile 5 vs. 1. For the combined outcomes of CGA and NV, we found a decreased risk for those with 2 risk alleles for ARMS2 when comparing quintile 5 vs. 1 (P=.003) and these results were significantly different than for those with no or 1 risk allele (P interaction=.03).
Conclusions :
Following the alternative Mediterranean diet may be associated with a lower risk of developing geographic atrophy.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.