Lifestyle score for patients with age-related macular degeneration to promote change

Abstract

Purpose : Doctors find it challenging to address lifestyle changes in patients with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) despite the current insight that a healthy lifestyle can reduce risk of progression by half. We developed an easy to use lifestyle scoring form for patients with intermediate or unilateral late AMD who are still at risk for severe visual loss.
.

Methods : Scoring forms were created based on risk estimates for lifestyle factors from validated studies. Patients ascertained from the clinic and patient organizations received scores for smoking, Mediterranean diet, exercise, and BMI. Each healthy outcome received a point; the maximum score was 13 points. We determined tertiles of total genetic risk by genotyping the 52 known common risk variants.

Results : In an ongoing AMD lifestyle study, we analyzed the scores from the first 38 AMD patients with intermediate or unilateral late AMD. Of these, 16 (42%) had a total lifestyle score ≤ 6; only 2 (6%) scored ≥ 10. Low scores were mainly driven by non-adherence to the Mediterranean diet, with low vegetable and fish intake being most prominent. The majority (56%) of patients had a genetic risk in the highest tertile.

Conclusions : This lifestyle form provides an easy tool to gain insight about the lifestyle of AMD patients, and can help motivate them to improve their daily habits to reduce the impact of their genetic risk.

This abstract was presented at the 2022 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Denver, CO, May 1-4, 2022, and virtually.